FROM  THE 

LOG 

OF  THE 

VELSA 

ARNOLD 
BENNETT 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF 
THE  VELSA 


, 


AARHUS.     FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  ARNOLD  BENNETT 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF 
THE  VELSA 


BY 

ARNOLD   BENNETT 


PICTURES  BY 
E.  A.  RICKARDS 

AND  A  FRONTISPIECE  BY 

THE  AUTHOR 


NEW  YORK 
THE  CENTURY  CO. 
1914 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Published,  October,  1914 


CONTENTS 


PART  I— HOLLAND 

CHAPTER  PAGB 

I  VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 3 

II  DUTCH   LEISURE 24 

III  DUTCH  WORK 39 

IV  THE    ZUYDER   ZEE 53 

V  SOME   TOWNS 70 

VI     MUSEUMS 88 

PART  II— THE  BALTIC 

VII     THE   YACHT  LOST 107 

VIII     BALTIC    COMMUNITIES 133 

IX.   A    DAY'S    SAIL 145 

PART  III— COPENHAGEN 

X     THE   DANISH   CAPITAL 161 

XI     CAFES  AND   RESTAURANTS 173 

XII     ARISTOCRACY   AND   ART 188 

XIII  THE    RETURN 198 

PART  IV— ON  THE  FRENCH  AND  FLEMISH  COASTS 

XIV  FOLKESTONE    TO    BOULOGNE 211 

XV     TO    BELGIUM 228 

IVI     BRUGES 245 

PART  V— EAST  ANGLIAN  ESTUARIES 

XVII     EAST  ANGLIA 261 

XVIII     IN   SUFFOLK 280 

XIX     THE    INCOMPARABLE    BLACKWATER 295 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Aarhus Frontispiece 

The  Embarkation 5 

By  the  Quay 12 

Writing  Home 21 

A  Visitor 26 

A  Minor  Barge  which  a  Girl  will  Steer 31 

The  Road  is  Water  in  Friesland 38 

A  Friesland  Landscape 43 

At  Sneek 49 

The  Velsa  at  Hoorn 56 

In  the  Church  at  Hoorn 62 

Fanners  are  Rolling  Home 67 

In  the  Church  at  Enkhuisen 73 

The  Klaver  Straat,  Amsterdam 80 

At  Krasnapolsky's,  Amsterdam 85 

The  Caf£  Amgricain,  Amsterdam 92 

In  the  Victorian  Tea-Room,  Amsterdam 98 

On  the  Zuyder  Zee 103 

Esbjerg   Port 109 

The  Harbor,  Esbjerg 116 

Entering  the  Baltic 122 

Gently   Sardonic 127 

The  Skipper  Shopping 132 

An  Aristocrat  Among  the  Laboring  Classes 137 

The  Gate  to  Sweden 143 

Consulting  the  Chart 147 

Emigrant  Girls  writing  Postal  Cards  Home 154 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

A  View  from  the  Bridge,  Old  Copenhagen 160 

A  Copenhagen  Cafe" 165 

In  the  Trivoli  Gardens — Amusements  during  Dinner     .      .      .  172 

A  Skipper  on  a  Bicycle 177 

Swedish  Exercises  on  Deck 183 

The  Sound — Landing  Stage  of  the  Yacht  Club 190 

In  the  Glyptothek — Classic  Sculpture  and  Modern  Women     .      .195 

Enjoying  the  Scenery  of  the  Sound 202 

Early  Morn 207 

An  Official  of  the  French  Republic 214 

On  the  Dunes  near  Boulogne 220 

Making  a  Diplomatic  Episode  Out  of  Nothing  at  all  .      .      .      .  225 

A  Glimpse  of  the  Kursaal,  Ostend 232 

Bathing  Tents  and  Girls 237 

Street  Scene  in  Bruges 244 

Scene  in  Ghent 249 

A  Rococo  Church  Interior 253 

A  Fish-Restaurant  Boat 264 

Brightlingsea  Creek 274 

The  Dock,  Ipswich 283 

In  the  Estuary 294 

Leaving  Maldon 299 

Through  the  Meadows 305 


PART  I 
HOLLAND 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF 
THE  VELSA 

CHAPTER  I 

VOYAGING  ON   THE   CANALS 

THE  skipper,  who,  in  addition  to  being  a 
yachtsman,  is  a  Dutchman,  smiled  with  calm 
assurance  as  we  approached  the  Dutch  frontier  in 
the  August  evening  over  the  populous  water  of  the 
canal  which  leads  from  Ghent  to  Terneuzen.  He 
could  not  abide  Belgium,  possibly  because  it  is 
rather  like  Holland  in  some  ways.  In  his  opinion 
the  bureaucrats  of  Belgium  did  not  understand 
yachts  and  the  respect  due  to  them,  whereas  the 
bureaucrats  of  Holland  did.  Holland  was  pic- 
tured for  me  as  a  paradise  where  a  yacht  with  a 
seventy-foot  mast  never  had  to  wait  a  single  mo- 
ment for  a  bridge  to  be  swung  open.  When  I  in- 
quired about  custom-house  formalities,  I  learned 
that  a  Dutch  custom-house  did  not  exist  for  a  craft 
flying  the  sacred  blue  ensign  of  the  British  Naval 

3 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

Reserve.  And  it  was  so.  Merely  depositing  a 
ticket  and  a  tip  into  the  long-handled  butterfly-net 
dangled  over  our  deck  by  the  bridge-man  as  we 
passed,  we  sailed  straight  into  Holland,  and  no 
word  said!  But  we  knew  immediately  that  we 
were  in  another  country — a  countiy  cleaner  and 
neater  and  more  garnished  even  than  Belgium. 
The  Terneuzen  Canal,  with  its  brickwork  banks 
and  its  villages  "finished"  to  the  last  tile,  reminded 
me  of  the  extravagant,  oily  perfection  of  the  main 
tracks  of  those  dandiacal  railroads,  the  North 
Western  in  England  and  the  Pennsylvania  in 
America.  The  stiff  sailing  breeze  was  at  length 
favorable.  We  set  the  mainsail  unexceptionably ; 
and  at  once,  with  the  falling  dusk,  the  wind  fell, 
and  the  rain  too.  We  had  to  depend  again  on  our 
erratic  motor,  with  all  Holland  gazing  at  us.  Sud- 
denly the  whole  canal  was  lit  up  on  both  sides  by 
electricity.  We  responded  with  our  lights.  The 
exceedingly  heavy  rain  drove  me  into  the  saloon  to 
read  Dostoyevsky. 

At  eight  p.  M.  I  was  dug  up  out  of  the  depths  of 
Dostoyevsky  in  order  to  see  my  first  Dutch  harbor. 
Rain  poured  through  the  black  night.  There  was  a 

4 


THE  EMBARKATION 


VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 

plashing  of  invisible  wavelets  below,  utter  darkness 
above,  and  a  few  forlorn  lights  winking  at  vast 
distances.  I  was  informed  that  we  were  moored  in 
the  yacht-basin  of  Terneuzen.  I  remained  calm. 
Had  we  been  moored  in  the  yacht-basin  of  Kam- 
chatka, the  smell  of  dinner  would  still  have  been 
issuing  from  the  forecastle-hatch,  the  open  page  of 
Dostoyevsky  would  still  have  invited  me  through 
the  saloon  skylight,  and  the  amiable  ray  of  the  sa- 
loon lamp  would  still  have  glinted  on  the  piano  and 
on  the  binnacle  with  impartial  affection.  Herein 
lies  an  advantage  of  yachting  over  motoring.  I 
redescended  without  a  regret,  without  an  appre- 
hension. Already  the  cook  was  displacing  Dos- 
toyevsky in  favor  of  a  white  table-cloth  and  cut- 
lery. 

The  next  morning  we  were  at  large  on  the  billows 
of  the  West  Schelde,  a  majestic  and  enraged 
stream,  of  which  Flushing  is  the  guardian  and  Ant- 
werp the  mistress.  The  rain  had  in  no  wise  lost 
heart.  With  a  contrary  wind  and  a  choppy  sea, 
the  yacht  had  a  chance  to  show  her  qualities  and 
defects.  She  has  both.  Built  to  the  order  of  a 
Dutch  baron  rather  less  than  twenty  years  ago,  she 

7. 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

is  flat-bottomed,  with  lee-boards,  and  follows  closely 
the  lines  of  certain  very  picturesque  Dutch  fishing- 
smacks.  She  has  a  length  of  just  over  fifty-five 
feet  and  a  beam  of  just  over  fifteen  feet.  Her 
tonnage  is  fifty-one,  except  when  dues  have  to  be 
paid,  on  which  serious  occasions  it  mysteriously 
shrinks  to  twenty-one  net.  Yachtsmen  are  always 
thus  modest.  Her  rig  is,  roughly,  that  of  a  cutter, 
with  a  deliciously  curved  gaff  that  is  the  secret  envy 
of  all  real  cutters. 

Her  supreme  advantage,  from  my  point  of  view, 
is  that  she  has  well  over  six  feet  of  head-room  in  the 
saloon  and  in  the  sleeping-cabins.  And,  next,  that 
the  owner's  bed  is  precisely  similar  to  the  celestial 
bed  which  he  enjoyed  on  a  certain  unsurpassed 
American  liner.  Further,  she  carries  a  piano  and 
an  encyclopedia,  two  necessaries  of  life.  I  may  say 
that  I  have  never  known  another  yacht  that  carried 
an  encyclopedia  in  more  than  a  score  of  volumes. 
Again,  she  is  eternal.  She  has  timbers  that  recall 
those  of  the  Constitution.  There  are  Dutch  eel- 
boats  on  the  Thames  which  look  almost  exactly  like 
her  at  a  distance,  and  which  were  launched  before 
Victoria  came  to  the  throne.  She  has  a  cockpit  in 

8 


VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 

which  Hardy  might  have  kissed  Nelson.  She  sails 
admirably  with  a  moderate  wind  on  the  quarter. 
More  important  still,  by  far,  she  draws  only  three 
feet  eight  inches,  and  hence  can  often  defy  charts, 
and  slide  over  sands  where  deep-draft  boats  would 
rightly  fear  to  tread;  she  has  even  been  known  to 
sail  through  fields. 

Possibly  for  some  folk  her  chief  attribute  would 
be  that,  once  seen,  she  cannot  be  forgotten.  She 
is  a  lovely  object,  and  not  less  unusual  than  lovely. 
She  is  smart  also,  but  nothing  more  dissimilar  to 
the  average  smart,  conventional  English  or  Ameri- 
can yacht  can  well  be  conceived.  She  is  a  magnet 
for  the  curious.  When  she  goes  under  a  railway 
bridge  while  a  train  is  going  over  it,  the  engine- 
driver,  of  no  matter  what  nationality,  will  invaria- 
bly risk  the  lives  of  all  his  passengers  in  order  to 
stare  at  her  until  she  is  out  of  sight.  This  I  have 
noticed  again  and  again.  The  finest  compliment 
her  appearance  ever  received  was  paid  by  a  school- 
boy, who,  after  staring  at  her  for  about  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  as  she  lay  at  a  wharf  at  Kingston-on- 
Thames,  sidled  timidly  up  to  me  as  I  leaned  in  my 
best  maritime  style  over  the  quarter,  and  asked, 

9 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

"Please,  sir,  is  this  a  training  brig?"     Romance 
gleamed  in  that  boy's  eye. 

As  for  her  defects,  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should 
catalogue  them  at  equal  length.  But  I  admit  that, 
to  pay  for  her  headroom,  she  has  no  promenade- 
deck  for  the  owner  and  his  friends  to  "pace,"  unless 
they  are  prepared  to  exercise  themselves  on  the  roof 
of  the  saloon.  Also  that,  owing  to  her  shallowness, 
she  will  ignobly  blow  off  when  put  up  to  the  wind. 
Indeed,  the  skipper  himself,  who  has  proved  that 
she  will  live  in  any  sea,  describes  her  progress  under 
certain  conditions  as  "one  mile  ahead  and  two  miles 
to  leeward" ;  but  he  would  be  hurt  if  he  were  taken 
seriously.  Her  worst  fault  is  due  to  her  long,  over- 
hanging prow,  which  pounds  into  a  head  sea  with  a 
ruthlessness  that  would  shake  the  funnels  off  a  tor- 
pedo-boat. You  must  not  press  her.  Leave  her 
to  do  her  best,  and  she  will  do  it  splendidly ;  but  try 
to  bully  her,  and  she  will  bury  her  nose  and  defy 
you. 

That  morning  on  the  wide,  broad  Schelde,  with 
driving  rain,  and  an  ever-freshening  northwester 
worrying  her  bows,  she  was  not  pressed,  and  she  did 
not  sink;  but  her  fierce  gaiety  was  such  as  to  keep 

10 


BY  THE  QUAY 


VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 

us  all  alive.  She  threshed  the  sea.  The  weather 
multiplied,  until  the  half -inch  wire  rope  that  is  the 
nerve  between  the  wheel  and  the  rudder  snapped, 
and  we  were  at  the  mercy,  etc.  While  the  skipper, 
with  marvelous  resource  and  rapidity,  was  impro- 
vising a  new  gear,  it  was  discovered  amid  general 
horror,  that  the  piano  had  escaped  from  its  captiv- 
ity, and  was  lying  across  the  saloon  table.  Such 
an  incident  counts  in  the  life  of  an  amateur  musi- 
cian. Still,  under  two  hours  later,  I  was  playing 
the  same  piano  again  in  the  tranquillity  of  Flushing 
lock. 

It  was  at  Middelburg  that  the  leak  proved  its  ex- 
istence. Middelburg  is  an  architecturally  delight- 
ful town  even  in  heavy,  persevering  rain  and  a 
northwest  gale.  It  lies  on  the  canal  from  Flushing 
to  Veere,  and  its  belfry  had  been  a  beacon  to  us 
nearly  all  the  way  down  the  Schelde  from  Terneu- 
zen.  Every  English  traveler  stares  at  its  renowned 
town-hall ;  and  indeed  the  whole  place,  having  been 
till  recently  the  haunt  of  more  or  less  honest  Eng- 
lish racing  tipsters  and  book-makers,  must  be  en- 
deared to  the  British  sporting  character.  We  went 
forth  into  the  rain  and  into  the  town,  skirting  ca- 

13 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

nals  covered  with  timber-rafts,  suffering  the  lively 
brutishness  of  Dutch  infants,  and  gazing  at  the 
bare-armed  young  women  under  their  umbrellas. 
We  also  found  a  goodish  restaurant. 

When  we  returned  at  nine  P.  M.,  the  deck-hand,  a 
fatalistic  philosopher,  was  pumping.  He  made  a 
sinister  figure  in  the  dark.  And  there  was  the 
sound  of  the  rain  on  our  umbrellas,  and  the  sound 
of  the  pumped  water  pouring  off  our  decks  down 
into  the  unseen  canal.  I  asked  him  why  he  was 
pumping  at  that  hour.  He  answered  that  the  ship 
leaked.  It  did.  The  forecastle  floor  was  under  an 
inch  of  water,  and  water  was  pushing  up  the  carpet 
of  the  starboard  sleeping-cabin,  and  all  the  clean 
linen  in  the  linen-locker  was  drenched.  In  a  mi- 
raculous and  terrifying  vision,  which  changed  the 
whole  aspect  of  yachting  as  a  recreation,  I  saw  the 
yacht  at  the  bottom  of  the  canal.  I  should  not  have 
had  this  vision  had  the  skipper  been  aboard ;  but  the 
skipper  was  ashore,  unfolding  the  beauties  of  Hol- 
land to  the  cook.  I  knew  the  skipper  would 
explain  and  cure  the  leak  in  an  instant.  A  remark- 
able man,  Dutch  only  by  the  accident  of  birth  and 
parentage,  active  as  a  fox-terrier,  indefatigable  as 

14 


VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 

a  camel,  adventurous  as  Columbus,  and  as  prudent 
as  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  he  had  never  failed  me. 
Half  his  life  had  been  spent  on  that  yacht,  and  the 
other  half  on  the  paternal  barge.  He  had  never 
lived  regularly  in  a  house.  Consequently  he  was 
an  expert  of  the  very  first  order  on  the  behavior 
of  Dutch  barges  under  all  conceivable  conditions. 
While  the  ship  deliberately  sank  and  sank,  the 
pumping  monotonously  continued,  and  I  waited  in 
the  saloon  for  him  to  come  back.  Dostoyevsky 
had  no  hold  on  me  whatever.  The  skipper 
would  not  come  back;  he  declined  utterly  to  come 
back;  he  was  lost  in  the  mazy  vastness  of  Middel- 
burg. 

Then  I  heard  his  voice  forward.  He  had  arrived 
in  silence.  "I  hear  our  little  ship  has  got  a  leak, 
sir,"  he  said  when  I  joined  the  group  of  profes- 
sional mariners  on  the  forward  deck,  in  the  thick 
rain  that  veiled  even  gas-lamps.  I  was  disap- 
pointed. The  skipper  was  depressed,  sentimentally 
depressed,  and  he  was  quite  at  a  loss.  Was  the 
leak  caused  by  the  buffetings  of  the  Schelde,  by  the 
caprices  of  the  piano,  by  the  stress  of  working 
through  crowded  locks?  He  knew  not.  But  he 

15 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

would  swear  that  the  leak  was  not  in  the  bottom, 
because  the  bottom  was  double.  The  one  thing  to 
do  was  to  go  to  Veere,  and  put  the  ship  on  a  grid 
that  he  was  aware  of  in  the  creek  there,  and  find 
the  leak.  And,  further,  there  were  a  lot  of  other 
matters  needing  immediate  attention.  The  bob- 
stay  was  all  to  pieces,  both  pumps  were  defective, 
and  the  horn  for  rousing  lethargic  bridge-men 
would  not  have  roused  a  rabbit.  All  which  meant 
for  him  an  expedition  to  Flushing,  that  bustling 
port! 

The  ship  was  pumped  dry.  But  the  linen  was 
not  dry.  I  wanted  to  spread  it  out  in  the  saloon; 
but  the  skipper  would  not  permit  such  an  outrage 
on  the  sanctity  of  the  saloon,  he  would  not  even  let 
the  linen  rest  in  the  saloon  lavatory  (sometimes 
called  the  bath-room).  It  must  be  hidden  like  a 
shame  in  the  forecastle.  So  the  crew  retired  for 
the  night  to  the  sodden,  small  forecastle  amid 
soaked  linen,  while  I  reposed  in  dry  and  comforta- 
ble spaciousness,  but  worried  by  those  sociological 
considerations  which  are  the  mosquitos  of  a  luxuri- 
ous age — and  which  ought  to  be.  None  but  a  tyrant 
convinced  of  the  divine  rights  of  riches  could  be  al- 

16 


VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 

ways  at  ease  on  board  a  small  yacht;  on  board  a 
large  one,  as  in  a  house,  the  contrasts  are  less  point- 
blank.  And  yet  must  small  yachts  be  abolished? 
Absurd  idea!  Civilization  is  not  so  simple  an 
affair  as  it  seems  to  politicians  perorating  before 
immense  audiences. 

Owing  to  the  obstinacy  of  water  in  finding  its 
own  level,  we  went  to  bed  more  than  once  during 
that  night,  and  I  thought  of  selling  the  ship  and 
giving  to  the  poor.  What  a  declension  from  the 
glory  of  the  original  embarkation! 

The  next  afternoon,  through  tempests  and  an 
eternal  downpour,  we  reached  Veere,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  canal.  Veere  is  full  of  Scotch  history 
and  of  beauty;  it  has  a  cathedral  whose  interior  is 
used  by  children  as  a  field,  a  gem  of  a  town-hall,  and 
various  attractions  less  striking;  but  for  us  it  ex- 
isted simply  as  a  place  where  there  was  a  grid,  to 
serve  the  purpose  of  a  dry-dock.  On  the  follow- 
ing morning  we  got  the  yacht  onto  the  grid,  and 
then  began  to  wait  for  the  tide  to  recede.  During 
its  interminable  recession,  we  sat  under  a  shed  of 
the  shipyard,  partly  sheltered  from  the  constant 
rain,  and  labored  to  produce  abominable  water- 

17 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  rELSA 

colors  of  the  yacht,  with  the  quay  and  the  cathedral 
and  the  town-hall  as  a  background.  And  then 
some  one  paddling  around  the  yacht  in  the  dinghy 
perceived  a  trickle  out  of  a  seam.  The  leak!  It 
was  naught  but  the  slight  starting  of  a  seam!  No 
trace  of  other  damage.  In  an  hour  it  had  been  re- 
paired with  oakum  and  hammers,  and  covered  with 
a  plaster  of  copper.  The  steering-gear  was  re- 
paired. The  pumps  were  repaired.  The  bobstay 
was  repaired.  The  water-color  looked  less  abomi- 
nable in  the  discreet,  kindly  light  of  the  saloon. 
The  state  of  human  society  seemed  less  volcanically 
dangerous.  God  was  in  His  heaven.  "I  suppose 
you  'd  like  to  start  early  to-morrow  morning,  sir," 
said  the  skipper,  whose  one  desire  in  life  is  to  go 
somewhere  else.  I  said  I  should. 

I  went  ashore  with  the  skipper  to  pay  bills — four 
gulden  for  repairs  and  three  gulden  for  the  use  of 
the  grid.  It  would  have  been  much  more  but  for 
my  sagacity  in  having  a  Dutch  skipper.  The 
charming  village  proved  to  be  virtually  in  the  pos- 
session of  one  of  those  formidable  English  families 
whose  ladies  paint  in  water-colors  when  no  golf- 
course  is  near.  They  ran  ecstatically  about  the 

18 


VOYAGING  ON  THE  CANALS 

quay  with  sheets  of  Whatman  until  the  heavy  rain 
melted  them.  The  owner  of  the  grid  lived  in  a 
large  house  with  a  most  picturesque  facade.  In- 
side it  was  all  oilcloth,  red  mahagony,  and  crimson 
plush,  quite  marvelously  hideous.  The  shipwright 
was  an  old,  jolly  man,  with  white  whiskers  spread- 
ing like  a  peacock's  tail.  He  gave  us  cigars  to 
pass  the  time  while  he  accomplished  the  calligraphy 
of  a  receipt.  He  was  a  man  sarcastic  about  his 
women  (of  whom  he  had  many),  because  they 
would  not  let  him  use  the  voor-kammer  (front 
room)  to  write  receipts  in.  I  said  women  were 
often  the  same  in  England,  and  he  gave  a  short 
laugh  at  England.  Nevertheless,  he  was  proud  of 
his  women,  because  out  of  six  daughters  five  had 
found  husbands,  a  feat  of  high  skill  in  that  island  of 
Walcheren,  where  women  far  outnumber  men. 

Outside,  through  the  mullioned  window,  I  saw  a 
young  matron  standing  nonchalant  and  unpro- 
tected in  the  heavy  rain.  She  wore  an  elaborate 
local  costume,  with  profuse  gilt  ornaments.  The 
effect  of  these  Dutch  costumes  is  to  suggest  that 
the  wearer  carries  only  one  bodice,  thin  and  armless, 
but  ten  thousand  skirts.  Near  the  young  matron 

19 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

was  a  girl  of  seven  or  eight,  dressed  in  a  fashion  pre- 
cisely similar,  spectacle  exquisite  to  regard,  but  un- 
satisfactory to  think  about.  Some  day  all  these 
women  will  put  on  long  sleeves  and  deprive  them- 
selves of  a  few  underskirts,  and  all  the  old,  jolly 
men  with  spreading  white  beards  will  cry  out  that 
women  are  unsexed  and  that  the  end  of  the  world 
is  nigh.  In  another  house  I  bought  a  fisherman's 
knitted  blue  jersey  of  the  finest  quality,  as  being 
the  sole  garment  capable  of  keeping  me  warm  in  a 
Dutch  summer.  I  was  told  that  the  girl  who 
knitted  it  received  only  half  a  gulden  for  her  labor. 
Outrageous  sweating,  which  ought  never  to  have 
been  countenanced.  Still,  I  bought  the  jersey. 

At  six-thirty  next  day  we  were  under  way — a 
new  ship,  as  it  seemed  to  me.  Yachts  may  have 
leaks,  but  we  were  under  way,  and  the  heavenly 
smell  of  bacon  was  in  the  saloon ;  and  there  had  been 
no  poring  over  time-tables,  no  tipping  of  waiters, 
no  rattling  over  cobbles  in  omnibuses,  no  waiting  in 
arctic  railway-stations,  no  pugnacity  for  corner 
seats,  no  checking  of  baggage.  I  was  wakened  by 
the  vibration  of  the  propeller;  I  clad  myself  in  a 
toga,  and  issued  forth  to  laugh  good-by  at  sleeping 

20 


WRITING  HOME 


Veere — no  other  formalities.  And  all  along  the 
quay,  here  and  there,  I  observed  an  open  window 
among  the  closed  ones.  Each  open  window  de- 
noted for  me  an  English  water-colorist  sleeping, 
even  as  she  or  he  had  rushed  about  the  quay,  with  an 
unconcealed  conviction  of  spiritual,  moral,  and 
physical  superiority.  It  appeared  to  me  monstrous 
that  these  English  should  be  so  ill  bred  as  to  inflict 
their  insular  notions  about  fresh  air  on  a  historic 
Continental  town.  Every  open  window  was  an  ar- 
rogant sneer  at  Dutch  civilization,  was  it  not? 
Surely  they  could  have  slept  with  their  windows 
closed  for  a  few  weeks!  Or,  if  not,  they  might 
have  chosen  Amsterdam  instead  of  Veere,  and  prac- 
tised their  admirable  Englishness  on  the  "Victorian 
Tea-Room"  in  that  city. 

We  passed  into  the  Veeregat  and  so  into  the 
broad  Roompot  Channel,  and  left  Veere.  It  was 
raining  heavily,  but  gleams  near  the  horizon  al- 
lowed me  to  hope  that  before  the  day  was  out  I 
might  do  another  water-color. 


23 


E 


CHAPTER  II 

DUTCH   LEISURE 

VERY  tourist  knows  that  Holland  is  one 
of  the  historic  cradles  of  political  freedom, 
and  also  a  chain  of  cities  which  are  in  effect  mu- 
seums of  invaluable  art.  The  voyager  in  a  little 
ship  may  learn  that  in  addition  to  all  this  Holland 
is  the  home  of  a  vast  number  of  plain  persons  who 
are  under  the  necessity  of  keeping  themselves  alive 
seven  days  a  week,  and  whose  experiments  in  the 
adventure  of  living  have  an  interest  quite  equal  to 
the  interest  of  ancient  art.  To  judge  that  adven- 
ture in  its  final  aspect,  one  should  see  Holland  on 
a  Sunday,  and  not  the  Holland  of  the  cities,  but  of 
the  little  towns. 

We  came  one  Sunday  morning  to  a  place  called 
Zieriksee,  on  an  island  to  the  north  of  the  East 
Schelde.  Who  has  heard  of  Zieriksee?  Neverthe- 
less, Zieriksee  exists,  and  seven  thousand  people 
prosecute  the  adventure  therein  without  the  aid  of 

24 


V 


A  VISITOR 


DUTCH  LEISURE 

museums  and  tourists.  At  first,  from  the  mouth  of 
its  private  canal,  it  seems  to  be  a  huge,  gray  tower 
surrounded  by  tiniest  doll's-houses  with  vermilion 
roofs ;  and  as  you  approach,  the  tower  waxes,  until 
the  stones  of  it  appear  sufficient  to  build  the  whole 
borough;  then  it  wanes,  and  is  lost  in  the  town,  as 
all  towers  ultimately  are.  The  cobbled  quay  and 
streets  were  empty  as  we  moored.  And  in  an  in- 
stant a  great  crowd  sprang  up  out  of  the  earth, — 
men  and  boys  and  girls,  but  few  women, — staring, 
glaring,  giggling,  gabbling,  pushing.  Their  in- 
quisitiveness  had  no  shame,  no  urbanity.  Their 
cackle  deafened.  They  worried  the  Velsa  like 
starving  wolves  worrying  a  deer.  The  Velsa  was 
a  godsend,  unhoped  for,  in  the  enormous  and  cruel 
tedium  which  they  had  created  for  themselves.  To 
escape  them  we  forced  our  way  ashore,  and  trod 
the  clean,  deathlike,  feet-torturing  streets.  One 
shop  was  open;  we  entered  it,  and  were  supplied 
with  cigarettes  by  two  polite  and  gracious  very  old 
women  who  knew  no  English.  On  emerging  from 
this  paganism,  we  met  a  long,  slow-slouching, 
gloomy  procession  of  sardonic  human  beings, — not 
a  pretty  woman  among  them,  not  a  garment  that 

27 


V/JJ         -L  JLXJLJ 


was  comely  or  unclean  or  unrespectable,  not  a  smile, 
—  the  great,  faithful  congregation  marching  out  of 
the  great  church.  Here  was  the  life  of  leisure  in 
Holland  as  distinguished  from  the  week-day  life 
of  industry.  It  was  a  tragic  spectacle.  When  we 
returned  to  the  yacht,  the  other  congregation  was 
still  around  it.  And  it  was  still  there,  just  as  noisy 
and  boorish,  when  we  left  several  hours  later.  And 
it  would  still  have  been  there  if  we  had  remained 
till  midnight.  The  phenomenon  of  that  crowd, 
wistful  in  its  touching  desire  for  distraction,  was 
a  serious  criticism  of  the  leaders  of  men  in  Holland. 
As  we  slid  away,  we  could  see  the  crowd  rapidly 
dissolving  into  the  horror  of  its  original  ennui.  I 
asked  the  cook,  a  cockney,  what  he  thought  of  Zie- 
riksee.  His  face  lightened  to  a  cheerful  smile. 

*  'Rather  a  nice  sort  of  place,  sir.  More  like 
England." 

The  same  afternoon  we  worked  up  the  Schelde 
in  a  dead  calm  to  Zijpe.  The  rain  had  pretermit- 
ted  for  the  first  time,  and  the  sun  was  hot.  Zijpe 
is  a  village,  a  haven,  a  dike,  and  a  junction  of  train 
and  steamer.  The  village  lies  about  a  mile  inland. 
The  haven  was  pretty  full  of  barges  laid  up  for 

28 


DUTCH  LEISURE 

Sunday.  On  the  slopes  of  the  haven,  near  the  rail- 
way-station and  the  landing-stage,  a  multitude  of 
at  least  a  thousand  people  were  strolling  to  and  fro 
or  sitting  on  the  wet  grass,  all  in  their  formidable 
Sabbath  best.  We  joined  them,  in  order,  if  possi- 
ble, to  learn  the  cause  of  the  concourse;  but 
the  mystery  remained  for  one  hour  and  a  half  in  the 
eventless  expanse  of  the  hot  afternoon,  when  the 
train  came  in  over  the  flat,  green  leagues  of  land- 
scape. We  then  understood.  The  whole  of  Zijpe 
had  turned  out  to  see  the  afternoon  train  come  in ! 
It  was  a  simple  modest  Dutch  local  train,  mak- 
ing a  deal  of  noise  and  dust,  and  bearing  perhaps 
a  score  of  passengers.  But  it  marked  the  grand 
climacteric  of  leisured  existence  at  Zijpe.  We  set 
off  to  the  village,  and  discovered  a  village  deserted, 
and  a  fair-ground,  with  all  its  booths  and  circuses 
swathed  up  in  gray  sheeting.  Scarcely  a  soul! 
The  spirit  of  romance  had  pricked  them  all  to  the 
railway-station  to  see  the  train  come  in! 

Making  a  large  circuit,  we  reached  again  the 
river  and  the  dike,  and  learned  what  a  dike  is  in 
Holland.  From  the  top  of  it  we  could  look  down 
the  chimneys  of  houses  on  the  landward  side.  The 

29 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

population  was  now  on  the  dike,  promenading  in 
magnificent  solemnity  and  self-control.  Every- 
body gravely  saluted  us  in  passing.  We  gravely 
saluted  everybody,  and  had  not  a  moment  to  our- 
selves for  miles. 

"Over  there,"  said  the  skipper  afterward,  point- 
ing vaguely  to  the  southeast  over  the  Schelde, 
"they  're  Roman  Catholics.  There  's  a  lot  of  Span- 
iards left  in  Holland."  By  Spaniards  he  meant 
Dutchmen  with  some  Spanish  blood. 

"Then  they  enjoy  their  Sundays?"  I  suggested. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  sarcastically,  "they  enjoy 
their  Sundays.  They  put  their  playing-cards  in 
their  pockets  before  they  go  to  church,  and  then 
they  go  straight  from  the  church  to  the  cafe,  and 
play  high,  and  as  like  as  not  knife  each  other  before 
they  Ve  done."  Clearly  it  takes  all  sorts  to  make 
a  little  world  like  Holland,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
strike  the  mean  between  absolute  nullity  and  homi- 
cidal knives.  My  regret  is  that  the  yacht  never 
got  as  far  as  those  Spaniards  gaming  and  knifing 
in  cafes. 

On  Monday  morning  every  skipper  on  every 
river  and  canal  of  Holland  tries  to  prove  that  the 

30 


A  MINOR  BARGE  WHICH  A  GIRL  WILL  STEER 


DUTCH  LEISURE 

stagnation  of  Sunday  is  only  a  clever  illusion.  The 
East  Schelde  hummed  with  express  barges  at  five 
A.  M.  It  was  exactly  like  a  Dutch  picture  by  an 
old  master.  Even  we,  in  no  hurry,  with  a  strong 
tide  under  us  and  a  rising  northwester  behind  us, 
accomplished  fifteen  sea-miles  in  ninety  minutes. 
Craft  were  taking  shelter  from  the  threatened  gale. 
In  spite  of  mistakes  by  an  English  crew  unaccus- 
tomed to  a  heavy  mainsail  in  tortuous  navigation 
and  obstreperous  weather,  we  reached  Dordrecht 
railway  bridge  without  public  shame;  and  then  the 
skipper  decided  that  our  engine  could  not  be  trusted 
to  push  us  through  the  narrow  aperture  against 
wind  and  tide.  Hence  we  bargained  with  a  tug, 
and  were  presently  attached  thereto,  waiting  for 
the  bridge  to  open. 

Considering  that  Holland  is  a  country  where 
yachts  are  understood,  and  where  swing-bridges 
open  at  a  glance,  we  had  to  wait  some  little  time 
for  that  bridge;  namely,  three  hours.  The  patri- 
otism of  the  skipper  was  strained.  During  the 
whole  period  the  tug  rushed  to  and  fro,  frisking  us 
wildly  about  like  a  kettle  at  the  tail  of  a  busy  dog, 
and  continuously  collecting  other  kettles,  so  that 

33 


our  existence  was  one  long  shock  and  collision. 
But  we  saw  a  good  deal  of  home  life  on  the  barges, 
from  a  minor  barge  which  a  girl  will  steer  to  the 
three- thousand-ton  affair  that  surpasses  mail  steam- 
ers in  capacity.  There  are  two  homes  on  these 
monsters,  one  at  the  stem  and  the  other  at  the  stern ; 
the  latter  is  frequently  magnificent  in  spaciousness 
and  gilding.  That  the  two  families  in  the  two  dis- 
tant homes  are  ever  intimate  is  impossible,  that  they 
are  even  acquainted  is  improbable;  but  they  seem 
to  share  a  tireless  dog,  who  runs  incessantly  along 
the  leagues  of  planking  which  separate  them. 

The  bridge  did  at  last  open,  and  everything  on 
the  river,  unmindful  of  everything  else,  rushed 
headlong  at  the  opening,  like  a  crowd  of  sinners 
dashing  for  a  suddenly  unbarred  door  into  heaven. 
Our  tug  jerked  us  into  the  throng,  a  fearful 
squeeze,  and  we  were  through.  We  cast  off,  the 
gulden  were  collected  in  a  tin,  and  within  five  min- 
utes we  were  moored  in  the  New  Haven,  under  the 
lee  of  the  Groote  Kerk,  with  trees  all  around  us,  in 
whose  high  tops  a  full  gale  was  now  blowing. 

The  next  morning  our  decks  were  thickly  car- 
peted with  green  leaves,  a  singular  sight.  The  har- 

34 


DUTCH  LEISURE 

bor-master  came  aboard  to  demand  dues,  and 
demanded  them  in  excellent  English. 

"Where  did  you  learn  English?"  I  asked,  and  he 
answered  with  strange  pride: 

"Sir,  I  served  seven  years  under  the  British 
flag." 

Standing  heedless  in  the  cockpit,  under  driving 
rain,  he  recounted  the  casualties  of  the  night.  Fif- 
teen miles  higher  up  the  river  a  fifteen-hundred-ton 
barge  had  sunk,  and  the  master  and  crew,  consist- 
ing, inter  alia,,  of  all  his  family,  were  drowned.  I 
inquired  how  such  an  event  could  happen  in  a  nar- 
row river  amid  a  numerous  population,  and  learned 
that  in  rough  weather  these  barges  anchor  when  a 
tug  can  do  no  more  with  them,  and  the  crew  go  to 
bed  and  sleep.  The  water  gradually  washes  in  and 
washes  in,  until  the  barge  is  suddenly  and  silently 
engulfed.  Dutch  phlegm !  Corresponding  to  their 
Sabbatic  phlegm,  no  doubt.  Said  the  harbor-mas- 
ter: 

"Yes,  there  is  a  load-line,  but  they  never  takes 
no  notice  of  it  in  Holland;  they  just  loads  them  up 
till  they  won't  hold  any  more." 

The  fatalism  of  the  working-classes  everywhere 

35 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

is  perhaps  the  most  utterly  astounding  of  all  human 
phenomena. 

Thoughtful,  I  went  off  to  examine  the  carved 
choir-stalls  in  the  Groote  Kerk.  These  choir-stalls 
are  among  the  most  lovely  sights  in  Holland. 
Their  free,  fantastic  beauty  is  ravishing  and  unf  or- 
getable;  they  make  you  laugh  with  pleasure  as  you 
behold  them.  I  doubt  not  that  they  were  executed 
by  a  rough-tongued  man,  in  a  dirty  apron,  with 
shocking  finger-nails. 


THE  ROAD  IS  WATER  IN  FRIESLAND 


CHAPTER  III 

DUTCH    WORK 

T  "\  7~E  passed  through  Rotterdam  more  than 
T  V  once,  without  seeing  more  of  it  than  the 
amazing  traffic  of  its  river  and  its  admirable 
zoological  gardens  full  of  chromatically  inclined 
parrots;  but  we  stopped  at  a  minor  town  close  by, 
on  a  canal  off  the  Meuse,  Schiedam.  Instinct  must 
have  guided  me,  for  the  sociological  interest  of 
Schiedam  was  not  inconsiderable.  Schiedam  is 
called  by  the  Dutch  "stinking  Schiedam."  I  made 
a  circuit  of  the  town  canals  in  the  dinghy  and  con- 
vinced myself  that  the  epithet  was  just  and  not 
malicious.  On  the  lengthy  quays  were  a  large 
number  of  very  dignified  gin  distilleries,  whose  ar- 
chitecture was  respectable  and  sometimes  even  very 
good,  dating  from  perhaps  early  in  the  last  century. 
Each  had  a  baptismal  name,  such  as  "Liverpool," 
inscribed  in  large  letters  across  its  facade.  This 

39 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

rendering  decent  and  this  glorification  of  gin  con- 
stituted an  impressive  phenomenon.  But  it  was 
the  provinciality  and  the  uncouth  melancholy  of  the 
apparently  prosperous  town  that  took  my  fancy. 
We  walked  through  all  its  principal  streets  in  the 
rain,  and  I  thought  I  had  never  seen  a  provinciality 
so  exquisitely  painful  and  perfect.  In  this  city  of 
near  thirty  thousand  people  there  was  not  visible 
one  agreeably  imposing  shop,  or  one  woman  attired 
with  intent  to  charm,  or  one  yard  of  smooth  pave- 
ment. I  know  not  why  I  find  an  acrid  pleasure  in 
thus  beholding  mediocrity,  the  average,  the  every- 
day ordinary,  as  it  is;  but  I  do.  No  museum  of 
Amsterdam,  The  Hague,  or  Haarlem  touched  me 
so  nearly  as  the  town  of  Schiedam,  which,  after  all, 
I  suppose  I  must  have  liked. 

Toward  six  o'clock  we  noticed  an  unquiet,  yet 
stodgy,  gathering  in  the  square  where  is  the  elec- 
tric-tram terminus,  then  a  few  uniforms.  I  asked 
a  superior  police  officer  what  there  was.  He  said 
in  careful,  tranquil  English : 

"There  is  nothing.  But  there  is  a  strike  of  glass- 
workers  in  the  town.  Some  of  them  don't  want  to 
work,  and  some  of  them  do  want  to  work.  Those 

40 


DUTCH  WORK 

that  have  worked  to-day  are  being  taken  home  in 
automobiles.  That  is  all." 

I  was  glad  it  was  all,  for  from  his  manner  I  had 
expected  him  to  continue  to  the  effect  that  the  glass- 
workers  had  been  led  away  by  paid  agitators  and 
had  no  good  reason  to  strike.  The  automobiles  be- 
gan to  come  along,  at  intervals,  at  a  tremendous 
pace,  each  with  a  policeman  by  the  chauffeur's  side. 
In  one  was  a  single  artisan,  middle-aged,  with  a 
cigar  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth,  and  a  certain  ad- 
venturous look  in  his  eye.  The  crowd  grimly 
regarded.  The  police  tried  to  seem  as  if  they  were 
there  by  accident,  but  obviously  they  lacked  histri- 
onic training.  In  short,  the  scene  was  one  of  the 
common  objects  of  the  wayside  of  existence  all  over 
the  civilized  world.  It  presented  no  novelty  what- 
ever, and  yet  to  witness  it  in  Holland  was  piquant, 
and  caused  one  to  think  afresh  and  perhaps  more 
clearly. 

At  night,  when  it  had  ceased  to  rain,  I  was  es- 
corting a  friend  to  the  station.  Musicians  were 
climbing  up  into  the  bandstand  in  the  same  square. 
It  was  Wednesday,  the  evening  of  the  weekly  mu- 
nicipal concert.  The  railway-station,  far  out,  was 

41 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

superbly  gloomy,  and  it  was  the  only  station  in  Hol- 
land where  I  failed  to  get  a  non-Dutch  newspaper. 
The  train,  with  the  arrogance  of  an  international 
express,  slid  in,  slid  out,  and  forgot  Schiedam.  I 
emerged  from  the  station  alone.  A  one-horse  tram 
was  waiting. 

The  tram,  empty,  with  a  sinking,  but  everlasting, 
white  horse  under  a  yellow  cloth,  was  without  doubt 
the  most  provincial  and  melancholy  thing  that  des- 
tiny has  yet  brought  me  in  contact  with.  The  sim- 
ple spectacle  of  it,  in  the  flickering  gaslights  and 
in  the  light  of  its  own  lamps,  filled  the  heart,  with 
an  anguish  inexplicable  and  beautiful.  I  got  in. 
An  age  passed.  Then  an  old  workman  got  in,  and 
saluted;  I  saluted.  Save  for  the  saluting,  it  was 
the  Five  Towns  of  the  eighties  over  again,  intensi- 
fied, and  the  last  tram  out  of  Hanbridge  before  the 
theater-tram. 

An  age  passed.  Then  a  mysterious  figure  drew 
the  cloth  off  the  horse,  and  the  horse  braced  up  all 
its  four  legs.  We  were  starting  when  a  tight- 
folded  umbrella  waved  in  the  outer  obscurity.  An 
elderly,  easy-circumstanced  couple  arrived  upon  us 
with  deliberation ;  the  umbrella  was  a  good  one. 

42 


A  FRIESLAND  LANDSCAPE 


We  did  start.  We  rumbled  and  trundled  in  long 
curves  of  suburban  desolation.  Then  a  few  miser- 
able shops  that  ought  to  have  been  shut;  then  the 
square  once  more,  now  jammed  in  every  part  with 
a  roaring,  barbaric  horde.  In  the  distance,  over  a 
floor  of  heads,  was  an  island  of  illumination,  with 
the  figures  of  puffing  and  blowing  musicians  in  it; 
but  no  rumor  of  music  could  reach  us  through  the 
din.  The  white  horse  trotted  mildly  into  and  right 
through  the  multitude,  which  jeered  angrily,  but 
fell  back.  An  enormous  multitude,  Gothic,  Visi- 
gothic,  savage,  uncivilized,  chiefly  consisting  of 
young  men  and  big  boys — the  weekly  concert  of  hu- 
manizing music! 

I  left  the  tram,  and  walked  along  the  dark,  empty 
canal-side  to  the  yacht.  The  impression  of  stag- 
nation, tedium,  provincialism  was  overwhelming. 
Nevertheless,  here,  as  in  other  towns,  we  were 
struck  by  the  number  of  shop-windows  with  artist's 
materials  for  sale.  Such  was  Schiedam.  If  it  is 
asked  whether  I  went  to  Holland  on  a  yachting 
cruise  to  see  this  sort  of  thing,  the  answer  is  that  I 
just  did. 

After  a  few  weeks  I  began  to  perceive  that  Schie- 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

dam  and  similar  places,  though  thrilling,  were  not 
the  whole  of  Holland,  and  perhaps  not  the  most 
representative  of  Holland.  As  the  yacht  worked 
northward,  Holland  seemed  to  grow  more  Dutch, 
until,  in  the  chain  of  shallow  lakes  and  channels 
that  hold  Friesland  in  a  sort  of  permanent  baptism, 
we  came  to  what  was  for  me  the  ideal  or  celestial 
Holland — everything  done  by  water,  even  grass  cut 
under  water,  and  black-and-white  cows  milked  in 
the  midst  of  ponds,  and  windmills  over  the  eternal 
flatness  used  exclusively  to  shift  inconvenient  water 
from  one  level  to  another.  The  road  is  water  in 
Friesland,  and  all  the  world  is  on  the  road.  If 
your  approach  to  a  town  is  made  perilous  by  a  suc- 
cession of  barges  that  will  obstinately  keep  the  mid- 
dle of  the  channel,  you  know  that  it  is  market-day 
in  that  town,  and  the  farmers  are  rolling  home  in 
agreeable  inebriation. 

The  motor  broke  down  in  Friesland,  and  we  were 
immobolized  in  the  midst  of  blue-green  fields,  red 
dogs,  the  cows  aforesaid,  green  milk-floats,  blue- 
bloused  sportsmen,  and  cargoes  of  cannon-ball 
cheese.  We  decided  to  tow  the  yacht  until  we  got 
to  a  favorable  reach.  Certain  barges  sailed  past 

46 


DUTCH  WORK 

us  right  into  the  eye  of  the  wind,  against  all  physical 
laws,  but  the  Velsa  possessed  not  this  magic.  We 
saw  three  men  comfortably  towing  a  string  of  three 
huge  barges,  and  we  would  tow.  Unfortunately 
the  only  person,  the  skipper,  who  knew  how  to  tow 
had  to  remain  on  board.  The  cook,  the  deck-hand, 
and  I  towed  like  Greeks  pulling  against  Greeks, 
and  could  scarcely  move  one  little  yacht.  The 
cook,  neurasthenic  by  temperament,  grew  sad,  until 
he  fell  into  three  feet  of  inundation,  which  adven- 
ture struck  him  as  profoundly  humorous,  so  that  he 
was  contorted  with  laughter.  This  did  not  advance 
the  yacht.  Slowly  we  learned  that  towing  is  not 
mere  brute  striving,  but  an  art. 

We  at  last  came  to  terms  with  a  tug,  as  our  de- 
sire was  to  sleep  at  Sneek.  Sneek  is  the  veritable 
metropolis  of  those  regions.  After  passing,  at  late 
dusk,  the  mysterious  night-watchers  of  eel-nets,  who 
are  wakened  in  their  elaborate  green-and-yellow 
boats  by  a  bell,  like  a  Paris  concierge,  we  gradually 
emerged  into  nocturnal  Sneek  through  a  quadruple 
lane  of  barges  and  tugs  so  long  as  to  put  Sneek 
among  the  seven  great  ports  of  the  world.  And 
even  in  Sneek  at  nightfall  the  impression  of  im- 

47 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

mense  quantities  of  water  and  of  greenness,  yellow- 
ness, and  redness  was  continued.  It  rained,  as 
usual,  in  Sneek  the  next  day,  but  no  rain  and  no 
water  could  damp  Sneek.  It  was  the  most  active 
town  any  of  us  had  ever  seen.  It  must  have  been 
the  original  "hive  of  industry."  It  was  full,  and 
full  of  everything.  The  market  was  full  of  cattle, 
pigs,  and  sheep,  crowded  in  pens  and  in  carts; 
calves,  prone,  with  all  four  legs  tied  together,  filled 
acres  of  pavement.  The  cafes  were  full  of  dealers 
and  drovers,  mostly  rather  jolly,  being  served  by 
slatternly,  pleasant  women.  The  streets  were  full 
of  good  shops,  and  of  boys  and  girls  following  us 
and  touching  us  to  see  if  we  existed.  (Dreadful 
little  boors!)  The  barges  were  full  of  cauliflowers, 
cabbages,  apples,  potatoes,  sabots,  cheeses,  and  bar- 
rels. The  canals  were  full  of  barges  and  steamers. 
And  immediately  one  sat  down  to  sketch  a  group 
of  craft  one  learned  that  nothing  was  stationary. 
Everything  moved  that  floated — everything  on  the 
surface  of  miles  of  canal!  Everybody,  without 
haste,  but  without  stopping  ever,  was  tirelessly  en- 
gaged in  shifting  matter  from  one  spot  to  another. 
At  intervals  a  small  steamer,  twenty,  thirty,  fifty, 

48 


. 


: 


AT  SNEEK 


DUTCH  WORK 

eighty  tons,  would  set  off  for  a  neighboring  village 
with  a  few  passengers, — including  nice  girls, — a 
few  cattle,  and  high  piles  of  miscellaneous  pack- 
ages ;  or  would  come  in  from  a  neighboring  village. 
The  kaleidoscope  was  everlasting;  but  it  did  not  fa- 
tigue, because  it  never  hurried.  Only  it  made  us 
ashamed  of  our  idleness.  Gently  occupied  old 
country-women,  with  head-dresses  of  lace- work  and 
a  gold  casque,  the  whole  ridiculously  surmounted 
by  a  black  bonnet  for  fashion's  sake — even  these 
old  women  made  us  ashamed  of  our  untransporting 
idleness. 

Having  got  our  engine  more  or  less  repaired,  we 
departed  from  Sneek,  a  spot  that  beyond  most  spots 
abounds  in  its  own  individuality.  Sneelf  is  memo- 
rable. Impossible  to  credit  that  it  has  fewer  than 
thirteen  thousand  inhabitants! 

As,  at  breakfast,  we  dropped  down  the  canal  on 
the  way  to  Leeuwarden,  a  new  guest  on  board, 
whose  foible  is  the  search  for  the  ideal,  and  who  had 
been  declaiming  against  the  unattractiveness  of  the 
women  of  Munich,  spoke  thus : 

"Is  this  Dutch  bread?  I  think  I  should  like  to 
become  a  Dutchman,  and  live  at  Sneek,  and  marry 

51 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

a  Dutch  girl.  They  have  such  nice  blue  eyes,  and 
they  're  so  calm." 

I  remarked  that  I  should  have  thought  that  his 
recent  experiences  in  Munich  would  have  fright- 
ened him  right  off  the  entire  sex.  He  said : 

"Well,  they  're  all  beautiful  in  Vienna,  and  that 
worries  you  just  as  much  in  another  way.  Sneek 
is  the  mean." 


52 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   ZUYDER   ZEE 

WE  reached  the  Zuyder  Zee,  out  of  a  canal, 
at  Monnikendam,  which  is  a  respectably 
picturesque  townlet  and  the  port  of  embarkation  for 
Marken,  the  alleged  jewel  of  the  Zuyder  Zee,  the 
precious  isle  where  the  customs  and  the  costumes  of 
a  pure  age  are  mingled  with  the  prices  of  New  York 
for  the  instruction  of  tourists.  We  saw  Marken, 
but  only  from  the  mainland,  a  long,  serrated  silhou- 
ette on  the  verge.  The  skipper  said  that  Marken 
was  a  side-show  and  a  swindle,  and  a  disgrace  to  his 
native  country.  So  I  decided  to  cut  it  out  of  the 
program,  and  be  the  owner  of  the  only  foreign  yacht 
that  had  cruised  in  the  Zuyder  Zee  without  visiting 
Marken.  My  real  reason  was  undoubtedly  that  the 
day's  program  had  been  upset  by  undue  lolling  in 
the  second-hand  shops  of  Monnikendam.  Thus  we 
sailed  due  north  for  Hoorn,  secretly  fearing  that  at 
Marken  there  might  be  something  lovely,  unforget- 
able,  that  we  had  missed. 

53 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

The  Zuyder  is  a  sea  agreeable  to  sail  upon,  pro- 
vided you  don't  mind  rain,  and  provided  your  craft 
does  not  draw  more  than  about  six  feet.  It  has  the 
appearance  of  a  sea,  but  we  could  generally  touch 
the  bottom  with  our  sounding-pole;  after  all,  it  is 
not  a  sea,  but  a  submerged  field.  The  skipper 
would  tell  inclement  stories  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  un- 
der ice,  and  how  he  had  crossed  it  on  foot  between 
Enkhuizen  and  Stavoren,  risking  his  life  for  fun; 
and  how  he  had  been  obliged  to  recross  it  the  next 
day,  with  more  fatigue,  as  much  risk,  and  far  less 
fun,  because  there  was  no  other  way  home.  We 
ourselves  knew  it  only  as  a  ruffled  and  immense 
pond,  with  a  bracing  atmosphere  and  the  silhouettes 
of  diminished  trees  and  houses  sticking  up  out  of  its 
horizons  here  and  there.  When  these  low  silhou- 
ettes happen  to  denote  your  destination,  they  have 
the  strange  faculty  of  receding  from  your  prow  just 
as  fast  as  you  sail  toward  them,  a  magic  sea  of  an 
exquisite  monotony ;  and  when  you  arrive  anywhere, 
you  are  so  surprised  at  having  overtaken  the  sil- 
houette that  your  arrival  is  a  dream,  in  the  unreal 
image  of  a  city. 

The  one  fault  of  Hoorn  is  that  it  is  not  dead. 

54 


THE  VELSA  AT  HOORN 


THE  ZUYDER  ZEE 

We  navigated  the  Zuyder  Zee  in  order  to  see  dead 
cities,  and  never  saw  one.  Hoorn  is  a  delightful  vi- 
sion for  the  eye — beautiful  domestic  architecture, 
beautiful  warehouses,  beautiful  towers,  beautiful 
water-gate,  beautiful  aniline  colors  on  the  surface  of 
dreadful  canals.  If  it  were  as  near  to  London  and 
Paris  as  Bruges  is,  it  would  be  inhabited  exclusively 
by  water-colorists.  At  Hoorn  I  went  mad,  and 
did  eight  sketches  in  one  day,  a  record  which  ap- 
proaches my  highest  break  at  billiards.  Actually, 
it  is  inhabited  by  cheese-makers  and  dealers.  No 
other  town,  not  even  Chicago,  can  possibly  contain 
so  many  cheeses  per  head  of  the  population  as 
Hoorn.  At  Hoorn  I  saw  three  men  in  blue  blouses 
throwing  down  spherical  cheeses  in  pairs  from  the 
second  story  of  a  brown  and  yellow  and  green  ware- 
house into  a  yeljow  cart.  One  man  was  in  the  sec- 
ond story,  one  in  the  first,  and  one  in  the  cart. 
They  were  flinging  cheeses  from  hand  to  hand  when 
we  arrived  and  when  we  left,  and  they  never 
dropped  a  cheese  or  ceased  to  fling.  They  flung 
into  the  mysterious  night,  when  the  great  forms  of 
little  cargo-steamers  floated  soundless  over  romance 
to  moor  at  the  dark  quays,  and  the  long,  white  Eng- 

57 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

lish  steam-yacht,  with  its  two  decks,  and  its  chef  and 
its  fluffy  chambermaid,  and  its  polished  mahogany 
motor-launch,  and  its  myriad  lights  and  gleams, 
glided  to  a  berth  by  the  water-tower,  and  hung  there 
like  a  cloud  beyond  the  town,  keeping  me  awake 
half  the  night  while  I  proved  to  myself  that  I  did 
not  really  envy  its  owner  and  that  the  Velsa  was 
really  a  much  better  yacht. 

The  recondite  enchantment  of  Hoorn  was  inten- 
sified by  the  fact  that  the  English  tongue  was  not 
current  in  it.  I  met  only  one  Dutchman  there  who 
spoke  it  even  a  little,  a  military  officer.  Being  on 
furlough,  he  was  selling  cigars  in  a  cigar  shop  on 
behalf  of  his  parents.  Oh,  British  army  officer! 
Oh,  West  Point  Academy!  He  told  me  that  offi- 
cers of  the  Dutch  army  had  to  be  able  to  speak  Eng- 
lish, French,  and  German.  Oh,  British  army  offi- 
cer! Oh,  West  Point  Academy!  But  he  did  not 
understand  the  phrase  "East  Indian  cigar,"  He 
said  there  were  no  such  cigars  in  his  parents'  shop. 
When  I  said  "Sumatra,"  he  understood,  and 
fetched  his  mother.  When  I  said  that  I  desired 
the  finest  cigars  in  Hoorn,  his  mother  put  away  all 
the  samples  already  exhibited  and  fetched  his 

58 


THE  ZUYDER  ZEE 

father.  The  family  had  begun  to  comprehend  that 
a  serious  customer  had  strayed  into  the  shop.  The 
father,  in  apron,  with  a  gesture  of  solemnity  and 
deference  went  up-stairs,  and  returned  in  majesty 
with  boxes  of  cigars  that  were  warm  to  the  touch. 

"These  are  the  best?" 

"These  are  the  best." 

I  bought.     They  were  threepence  apiece. 

A  mild,  deliciously  courteous  family,  recalling 
the  tobacco-selling  sisters  at  Zieriksee,  and  a  pair  of 
tobacconist  brothers  in  the  Kalver-Straat,  Amster- 
dam, whose  politeness  and  soft  voices  would  have 
atoned  for  a  thousand  Schiedams.  The  Dutch 
middle  and  upper  classes  have  adorable  manners. 
It  was  an  ordeal  to  quit  the  soothing  tobacco  shop 
for  the  terrors  of  the  long,  exposed  Hoorn  High 
Street,  infested,  like  too  many  Dutch  streets,  by 
wolves  and  tigers  in  the  outward  form  of  dogs — 
dogs  that  will  threaten  you  for  a  mile  and  then  bite, 
in  order  to  prove  that  they  are  of  the  race  that  has 
always  ended  by  expelling  invaders  with  bloodshed. 

I  was  safer  in  the  yacht's  dinghy,  on  a  surface  of 
aniline  hues,  though  the  odors  were  murderous,  and 
though  for  two  hours,  while  I  sketched,  three  vio- 

59 


lent  young  housewives  were  continually  splashing 
buckets  into  the  canal  behind  me  as  they  laved  and 
scrubbed  every  separate  stone  on  the  quay.  If  ca- 
nals were  foul,  streets  were  as  clean  as  table-tops — 
cleaner. 

The  other  cities  of  the  Zuyder  Zee  were  not  more 
dead  than  Hoorn,  though  Enkhuizen,  our  next 
port,  was  more  tranquil,  possibly  because  we  arrived 
there  on  a  Saturday  evening.  Enkhuizen,  disap- 
pointing at  the  first  glance,  exerts  a  more  subtle 
fascination  than  Hoorn.  However,  I  remember  it 
as  the  place  where  we  saw  another  yacht  come  in, 
the  owner  steering,  and  foul  the  piles  at  the  en- 
trance. My  skipper  looked  at  his  owner,  as  if  to 
say,  "You  see  what  owners  do  when  they  take 
charge."  I  admitted  it. 

We  crossed  from  Enkhuizen  to  Stavoren  in  bad 
weather,  lost  the  dinghy  and  recovered  it,  and 
nearly  lost  the  yacht,  owing  to  the  cook  having 
taken  to  his  bunk  without  notice  when  it  was  im- 
perative to  shorten  sail  in  a  jiffy.  The  last  that  I 
heard  of  this  cook  was  that  he  had  become  an  om- 
nibus conductor.  Some  people  are  born  to  rise, 
and  the  born  omnibus  conductor  will  reach  that  es- 

60 


IN  THE  CHURCH  AT  HOORN 


THE  ZUYDER  ZEE 

tate  somehow.     He  was  a  pleasant,  sad  young  man, 
and  himself  painted  in  water-colors. 

I  dare  say  that  at  Stavoren  we  were  too  excited 
to  notice  the  town;  but  I  know  that  it  was  a  busy 
port.  Lemmer  also  was  busy,  a  severely  practical 
town,  with  a  superb  harbor-master,  and  a  doctor 
who  cured  the  cook.  We  were  disappointed  with 
Kampen,  a  reputed  beauty-spot,  praised  even  by  E. 
V.  Lucas,  who  never  praises  save  on  extreme  provo- 
cation. Kampen  has  architecture, — wonderful 
gates, — but  it  also  has  the  crudest  pavements  in 
Holland,  and  it  does  not  smile  hospitably,  and  the 
east  wind  was  driving  through  it,  and  the  rain. 
The  most  agreeable  corner  of  Kampen  was  the  char- 
coal-heated saloon  of  the  yacht.  We  left  Kampen, 
which  perhaps,  after  all,  really  was  dead,  on  Sep- 
tember 21.  The  morning  was  warm  and  perfect. 
I  had  been  afloat  in  various  countries  for  seven 
weeks  continuously,  and  this  was  my  first  warm, 
sunny  morning.  In  three  hours  we  were  at  the 
mouth  of  the  tiny  canal  leading  to  Elburg.  I  was 
steering. 

"Please  keep  the  center  of  the  channel,"  the  skip- 
per enjoined  me. 

63 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

I  did  so,  but  we  grounded.  The  skipper  glanced 
at  me  as  skippers  are  privileged  to  glance  at  own- 
ers, but  I  made  him  admit  that  we  were  within  half 
an  inch  of  the  mathematical  center  of  the  channel. 
We  got  a  line  on  to  the  pier,  arid  hauled  the  ship 
off  the  sand  by  brute  force.  When  I  had  seen  El- 
burg,  I  was  glad  that  this  incident  had  occurred ;  for 
Elburg  is  the  pearl  of  the  Zuyder.  Where  we, 
drawing  under  four  feet,  grounded  at  high  water 
in  mid-channel,  no  smart,  deep-draft  English  yacht 
with  chefs  and  chambermaids  can  ever  venture. 
And  assuredly  tourists  will  not  go  to  Elburg  by 
train.  Elburg  is  safe.  Therefore  I  feel  free  to 
mention  the  town. 

Smacks  were  following  one  another  up  the  canal 
for  the  week-end  surcease,  and  all  their  long-colored 
weins  (vanes)  streamed  in  the  wind  against  the  blue 
sky.  And  the  charm  of  the  inefficient  canal  was 
the  spreading  hay-fields  on  each  side,  with  big  wag- 
ons, and  fat  horses  that  pricked  up  their  ears 
(doubtless  at  the  unusual  sight  of  our  blue  ensign), 
and  a  young  mother  who  snatched  her  rolling  infant 
from  the  hay  and  held  him  up  to  behold  us.  And 
then  the  skipper  was  excited  by  the  spectacle  of  his 

64 


THE  ZUYDER  ZEE 

aged  father's  trading  barge,  unexpectedly  making 
for  the  same  port,  with  his  mother,  brother,  and  sis- 
ter on  deck — the  crew!  Arrived  in  port,  we  lay 
under  the  enormous  flank  of  this  barge,  and  the 
skipper  boarded  his  old  home  with  becoming  placid- 
ity. 

The  port  was  a  magnificent  medley  of  primary 
colors,  and  the  beautiful  forms  of  boats,  and  the 
heavy  curves  of  dark,  drying  sails,  all  dominated 
by  the  weins  streaming  in  the  hot  sunshine.  Every 
few  minutes  a  smack  arrived,  and  took  its  appointed 
place  for  Sunday.  The  basin  seemed  to  be  always 
full  and  always  receptive.  Nothing  lacked  for  per- 
fect picturesqueness,  even  to  a  little  ship-repairing 
yard,  and  an  establishment  for  raddling  sails 
stretched  largely  out  on  green  grass.  The  town 
was  separated  from  the  basin  by  a  narrow  canal 
and  a  red-brick  water-gate.  The  main  street  ran 
straight  away  inland,  and  merged  into  an  avenue  of 
yellowish-green  trees.  At  intervals  straight  streets 
branched  off  at  right  angles  from  the  main.  In  the 
center  of  the  burg  was  a  square.  Everywhere  rich 
ancient  roofs,  gables,  masonry,  and  brickwork  in 
Indian  reds  and  slaty-blues;  everywhere  glimpses 

65 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

of  courtyards  precisely  imitated  from  the  pictures 
of  Pieter  de  Hooch.  The  interior  of  the  church 
was  a  picture  by  Bosboom.  It  had  a  fine  organ- 
case,  and  a  sacristan  out  of  a  late  novel  by  Huys- 
mans.  The  churchyard  was  a  mass  of  tall  flowers. 

The  women's  costumes  here  showed  a  difference, 
the  gilt  casque  being  more  visibly  divided  into  two 
halves.  All  bodices  were  black,  all  skirts  blue. 
Some  of  the  fishermen  make  majestic  figures,  tall, 
proud,  commanding,  fit  adversaries  of  Alva;  in  a 
word,  exemplifications  of  the  grand  manner. 
Their  salutes  were  sometimes  royal. 

The  gaiety  of  the  color;  the  distinction  of  the 
forms ;  the  strange  warmth ;  the  completeness  of  the 
entity  of  the  town,  which  seemed  to  have  been  con- 
structed at  one  effort ;  the  content  of  the  inhabitants, 
especially  the  visible,  unconscious  gladness  of  the 
women  at  the  return  of  their  mariners ;  the  urbanity 
of  everybody — all  these  things  helped  to  produce  a 
comfortable  and  yet  disconcerting  sensation  that 
the  old,  unreformed  world  was  not  quite  ripe  for 
utter  destruction. 

All  day  until  late  in  the  evening  smacks  ceased 
not  to  creep  up  the  canal.  The  aspect  of  the  basin 

66 


FARMERS  ARE  ROLLING  HOME 


THE  ZUYDER  ZEE 

altered  from  minute  to  minute,  with  disastrous  ef- 
fect on  water-colorists.  In  the  dusk  we  ferreted  in 
a  gloomy  and  spellbound  second-hand  shop,  amid 
dozens  of  rococo  wall-clocks,  and  bought  a  few  little 
things.  As  we  finally  boarded  the  yacht  in  the 
dark,  we  could  see  a  group  of  sailors  in  a  bosky  ar- 
bor bending  over  a  table  on  which  was  a  lamp  that 
harshly  lighted  their  grave  faces.  They  may  have 
thought  that  they  were  calculating  and  apportion- 
ing the  week's  profits ;  but  in  reality  they  were  play- 
ing at  masterpieces  by  Rembrandt. 


69 


CHAPTER  V 

SOME   TOWlsTS 

HAARLEM  is  the  capital  of  a  province,  and 
has  the  airs  of  a  minor  metropolis.  When 
we  moored  in  the  Donkere  Spaarne,  all  the  archi- 
tecture seemed  to  be  saying  to  us,  with  innocent 
pride,  that  this  was  the  city  of  the  illustrious  Frans 
Hals,  and  the  only  place  where  Frans  Hals  could 
be  truly  appreciated.  Haarlem  did  not  stare  at 
strangers,  as  did  other  towns.  The  shops  in  the 
narrow,  busy  Saturday-night  streets  were  small  and 
slow,  and  it  took  us  most  of  an  evening,  in  and  out 
of  the  heavy  rain,  to  buy  three  shawls,  two  pairs  of 
white  stockings,  and  some  cigarettes;  but  the  shop- 
men and  shop-women,  despite  their  ignorance  of 
English,  American,  and  French,  showed  no  open- 
mouthed  provinciality  at  our  fantastic  demands. 
The  impression  upon  us  of  the  mysterious  entity 
of  the  town  was  favorable ;  we  felt  at  home. 

70 


SOME  TOWNS 

The  yacht  was  just  opposite  the  habitation  of 
a  nice  middle-class  family,  and  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, through  the  heavy  rain,  I  could  see  a  boy  of 
sixteen,  a  girl  of  fourteen,  and  a  child  of  five  or 
six,  all  dressing  slowly  together  in  a  bedroom  that 
overlooked  us,  while  the  father  in  shirt-sleeves  con- 
stantly popped  to  and  fro.  They  were  calmly  con- 
tent to  see  and  be  seen.  Presently  father  and  son, 
still  in  shirt-sleeves,  appeared  on  the  stoop,  each 
smoking  a  cigar,  and  the  girl  above,  arrayed  in 
Sunday  white,  moved  about  setting  the  bedroom 
in  order.  It  was  a  pleasant  average  sight,  en- 
hanced by  the  good  architecture  of  the  house, 
and  by  a  certain  metropolitan  self-unconscious- 
ness. 

We  went  to  church  later,  or  rather  into  a  church, 
and  saw  beautiful  models  of  ships  hung  in  the  nave, 
and  aged  men  entering,  with  their  hats  on  and  good 
cigars  in  their  mouths.  For  the  rest,  they  resem- 
bled superintendents  of  English  Sunday-schools  or 
sidesmen  of  small  parishes.  In  another  church  we 
saw  a  Sunday-school  in  full  session,  a  parson  in  a 
high  pulpit  exhorting,  secretary  and  minor  officials 
beneath  him,  and  all  the  boys  standing  up  with  shut 

71 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

eyes  and  all  the  girls  sitting  down  with  shut  eyes. 
We  felt  that  we  were  perhaps  in  the  most  Protest- 
tant  country  in  Europe. 

In  the  afternoon,  when  the  rain-clouds  lifted  for 
a  few  moments  and  the  museums  were  closed,  we 
viewed  the  residential  prosperity  of  Haarlem,  of 
which  the  chief  seat  is  the  Nieuwe  Gracht,  a  broad 
canal,  forbidden  to  barges,  flanked  by  broad  quays 
beautifully  paved  in  small  red  brick,  and  magnif- 
icent houses.  A  feature  of  the  noble  architecture 
here  was  that  the  light  ornamentation  round  the 
front  doors  was  carried  up  and  round  the  central 
windows  of  the  first  and  second  stories.  A  grand 
street!  One  properly  expected  to  see  elegant 
women  at  the  windows  of  these  lovely  houses, — 
some  were  almost  palaces, — and  one  was  disap- 
pointed. Women  there  were,  for  at  nearly  every 
splendid  window,  the  family  was  seated,  reading, 
talking,  gazing,  or  drinking  tea ;  but  all  the  women 
were  dowdy;  the  majority  were  middle-aged;  none 
was  beautiful  or  elegant.  Nor  was  any  of  the  visi- 
ble furniture  distinguished. 

The  beauty  of  Haarlem  seems  to  be  limited  to  ar- 
chitecture, pavements,  and  the  moral  comeliness  of 

72 


— 


'  > 


.4K> 


IN  THE  CHURCH  AT  ENKHUISEN 


SOME  TOWNS 

being  neat  and  clean.  The  esthetic  sense  apparently 
stops  there.  Charm  must  be  regarded  in  Haarlem 
with  suspicion,  as  a  quality  dangerous  and  un- 
respectable.  As  daylight  failed,  the  groups  within 
gathered  closer  and  closer  to  the  windows,  to  catch 
the  last  yellow  drops  of  it,  and  their  curiosity  about 
the  phenomena  of  the  streets  grew  more  frank. 
We  were  examined.  In  return  we  examined. 
And  a  discussion  arose  as  to  whether  inspection 
from  within  justified  inquisitiveness  from  the  street. 
The  decision  was  that  it  did  not;  that  a  person  in- 
side a  house  had  the  right  to  quiz  without  being 
quizzed.  But  this  merely  academic  verdict  was  not 
allowed  to  influence  our  immediate  deportment. 
In  many  houses  of  the  lesser  streets  tables  were  al- 
ready laid  for  supper,  and  one  noticed  heavy  silver 
napkin-rings  and  other  silver.  In  one  house  the 
shadowy  figures  of  a  family  were  already  grouped 
round  a  repast,  and  beyond  them,  through  another 
white-curtained  window  at  the  back  of  the  spacious 
room,  could  be  discerned  a  dim  courtyard  full  of 
green  and  yellow  foliage.  This  agreeable  picture, 
typifying  all  the  domestic  tranquillity  and  dignity 
of  prosperous  Holland,  was  the  last  thing  we  saw 

75 


before  the  dark  and  the  rain  fell,  and  the  gas-lamps 
flickered  in. 

We  entered  The  Hague  through  canals  pitted 
by  heavy  rain,  the  banks  of  which  showed  many 
suburban  residences,  undistinguished,  but  set  in  the 
midst  of  good  gardens.  And  because  it  was  the 
holiday  week, — the  week  containing  the  queen's 
birthday, — and  we  desired  quietude,  we  obtained 
permission  to  lie  at  the  private  quay  of  the  gas- 
works. The  creators  of  The  Hague  gas-works 
have  made  only  one  mistake:  they  ought  to  have 
accomplished  their  act  much  earlier,  so  that  Balzac 
might  have  described  it;  for  example,  in  "The  Alka- 
hest," which  has  the  best  imaginative  descriptions 
of  Dutch  life  yet  written.  The  Hague  gas-works 
are  like  a  toy,  gigantic;  but  a  toy.  Impossible  to 
believe  that  in  this  vast,  clean,  scrubbed,  swept  ex- 
panse, where  every  bit  of  coal  is  scrupulously  in 
place,  real  gas  is  made.  To  believe,  you  must  go 
into  the  city  and  see  the  gas  actually  burning. 
Even  the  immense  traveling-cranes,  when  at  work 
or  otherwise,  have  the  air  of  life-size  playthings. 
Our  quay  was  bordered  with  flower-beds.  The 
workmen,  however,  seemed  quite  real  workmen,  re- 

76 


alistically  dirty,  who  were  not  playing  at  work,  nor 
rising  at  five-thirty  A.M.  out  of  mere  joyous  ecstasy. 

Nor  did  the  bargemen  who  day  and  night  cease- 
lessly and  silently  propelled  their  barges  past  us 
into  the  city  by  means  of  poles  and  sweat,  seem  to 
be  toying  with  existence.  The  procession  of  these 
barges  never  stopped.  On  the  queen's  birthday, 
when  our  ship  was  dressed,  and  the  whole  town  was 
flagged,  it  went  on,  just  as  the  decorated  trams  and 
tram-drivers  went  on.  Some  of  the  barges  pene- 
trated right  through  the  populous  districts,  and 
emerged  into  the  oligarchic  quarter  of  ministries, 
bureaus,  official  residences,  palaces,  parks,  art  deal- 
ers, and  shops  of  expensive  lingerie — the  quarter, 
as  in  every  capital,  where  the  precious  traditions  of 
correctness,  patriotism,  red-tape,  order,  luxury,  and 
the  moral  grandeur  of  devising  rules  for  the  nice 
conduct  of  others  are  carefully  conserved  and  nour- 
ished. This  quarter  was  very  well  done,  and  the 
bargemen,  with  their  perspiring  industry,  might 
have  had  the  good  taste  to  keep  out  of  it. 

The  business  center  of  The  Hague,  lying  between 
the  palaces  and  the  gas-works,  is  cramped,  crowded, 
and  unimpressive.  The  cafes  do  not  glitter,  and 

77 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

everybody  knows  that  the  illumination  of  cafes  in  a 
capital  is  a  sure  index  of  a  nation's  true  greatness. 
Many  small  cafes,  veiled  in  costly  curtains  at  win- 
dow and  door,  showed  stray  dazzling  shafts 
of  bright  light,  but  whether  the  true  great- 
ness of  Holland  was  hidden  in  these  seductive 
arcana  I  never  knew.  Even  in  the  holiday  week 
the  principal  cafes  were  emptying  soon  after  ten 
o'clock.  On  the  other  hand,  the  large  stores  were 
still  open  at  that  hour,  and  the  shop-girls,  whose 
pale  faces  made  an  admirable  contrast  to  their 
black  robes,  were  still  serving  ladies  therein.  At 
intervals,  in  the  afternoons,  one  saw  a  chic  woman, 
moving  with  a  consciousness  of  her  own  elegance; 
but  she  was  very  exceptional.  The  rest  might  have 
run  over  for  the  day  from  Haarlem,  Delft, 
Utrecht,  or  Leyden.  In  the  really  excellent  and 
well-frequented  music-halls  there  was  no  elegance 
either.  I  have  never  anywhere  seen  better  music- 
hall  entertainments  than  in  Holland.  In  certain 
major  capitals  of  Europe  and  elsewhere  the  public 
is  apt  to  prove  its  own  essential  naivete  by  allowing 
itself  to  be  swindled  nightly  in  gorgeous  music- 
halls.  The  Dutch  are  more  astute,  if  less  elegant. 

78 


THE  KALVER-STRAAT,  AMSTERDAM 


SOME  TOWNS 

The  dying  engine  of  the  yacht  lost  consciousness, 
for  about  the  twentieth  time  during  this  trip,  as 
we  were  nearing  Amsterdam ;  but  a  high  wind,  car- 
rying with  it  tremendous  showers  of  rain,  kindly 
blew  us,  under  bare  poles,  up  the  last  half-mile  of 
the  North  Sea  Canal  into  the  private  haven  of  the 
Royal  Dutch  Yacht- Club,  where  we  were  most 
amicably  received,  as,  indeed,  in  all  the  yacht-club 
basins  of  Holland.  Baths,  telephones,  and  smok- 
ing-rooms were  at  our  disposal  without  any  charge, 
in  addition  to  the  security  of  the  haven,  and  it  was 
possible  to  get  taxicabs  from  the  somewhat  distant 
city.  We  demanded  a  chauffeur  who  could  speak 
English.  They  sent  us  a  taxi  with  two  chauffeurs 
neither  of  whom  could  speak  any  language  whatso- 
ever known  to  philologists.  But  by  the  use  of 
maps  and  a  modification  of  the  pictorial  writing  of 
the  ancient  Aztecs,  we  contrived  to  be  driven  al- 
most where  we  wanted.  At  the  end  of  the  excur- 
sion I  had  made,  in  my  quality  of  observer,  two 
generalizations :  first,  that  Amsterdam  taxis  had  two 
drivers  for  safety;  and,  second,  that  taxi- travel  in 
Amsterdam  was  very  exciting  and  dangerous. 
But  our  drivers  were  so  amiable,  soft-tongued,  and 

81 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

energetic  that  I  tipped  them  both.  I  then,  some- 
how, learned  the  truth :  one  of  the  men  was  driving 
a  taxi  for  the  first  time,  and  the  other  was  teaching 
him. 

After  driving  and  walking  about  Amsterdam  for 
several  days,  I  decided  that  it  would  be  completely 
civilized  when  it  was  repaved,  and  not  before.  It 
is  the  paradise  of  stomachs  and  the  hell  of  feet. 
Happily,  owing  to  its  canals  and  its  pavements,  it 
has  rather  fewer  of  the  rash  cyclists  who  menace 
life  in  other  Dutch  cities.  In  Holland,  outside  Am- 
sterdam, everybody  uses  a  cycle.  If  you  are  run 
down,  as  you  are,  it  is  just  as  likely  to  be  by  an 
aged  and  toothless  female  peasant  as  by  an  office 
boy.  Also  there  are  fewer  homicidal  dogs  in  Am- 
sterdam than  elsewhere,  and  there  is  the  same  gen- 
eral absence  of  public  monuments  which  makes 
other  Dutch  cities  so  agreeably  strange  to  the  Eng- 
lish and  American  traveler.  You  can  scarcely  be 
afflicted  by  a  grotesque  statue  of  a  nonentity  in 
Holland,  because  there  are  scarcely  any  statues. 

Amsterdam  is  a  grand  city,  easily  outclassing 
any  other  in  Holland.  Its  architecture  is  distin- 
guished. Its  historic  past  is  impressively  imma- 

82 


SOME  TOWNS 

nent  in  the  masonry  of  the  city  itself,  though  there 
is  no  trace  of  it  in  the  mild,  commonplace  demeanor 
of  the  inhabitants.  Nevertheless,  the  inhabitants 
understand  solidity,  luxury,  wealth,  and  good  cheer. 
Amsterdam  has  a  bourse  which  is  the  most  peculiar 
caprice  that  ever  passed  through  the  head  of  a 
stock-broker.  It  is  excessively  ugly  and  graceless, 
but  I  admire  it  for  being  a  caprice,  and  especially 
for  being  a  stock-broker's  caprice.  No  English 
stock-broker  would  have  a  caprice.  Amsterdam 
has  small  and  dear  restaurants  of  the  first  order, 
where  a  few  people  with  more  money  than  appetite 
can  do  themselves  very  well  indeed  in  hushed  pri- 
vacy. It  also  has  prodigious  cafes.  Krasnopol- 
shy's — a  town,  not  a  cafe — is  said  in  Amsterdam 
to  be  the  largest  cafe  in  Europe.  It  is  n't ;  but  it 
is  large,  and  wondrously  so  for  a  city  of  only  half 
a  million  people. 

In  the  prodigious  cafes  you  perceive  that  Am- 
sterdam possesses  the  quality  which  above  all  others 
a  great  city  ought  to  possess.  It  pullulates.  Vast 
masses  of  human  beings  simmer  in  its  thorough- 
fares and  boil  over  into  its  public  resorts.  The  nar- 
row Kalver-Straat,  even  in  the  rain,  is  thronged 

83 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

with  modest  persons  who  gaze  at  the  superb  luxury 
of   its    shops.     The    Kalver-Straat   will   compete 
handsomely    with    Bond    Street.     Go    along    the 
length  of  it,  and  you  will  come  out  of  it  thoughtful. 
Make  your  way  thence  to  the  Rembrandt-Plein, 
where  pleasure  concentrates,  and  you  will  have  to 
conclude  that  the  whole  of  Amsterdam  is  there,  and 
all  its  habitations  empty.     The  mirrored,  scintil- 
lating   cafes,    huge    and    lofty    and    golden,    are 
crowded  with  tables  and  drinkers  and  waiters,  and 
dominated  by  rhapsodic  orchestras  of  women  in 
white  who  do  what  they  can  against  the  hum  of  ten 
thousand  conversations,  the  hoarse  calls  of  waiters, 
and  the  clatter  of  crockery.     It  is  a  pandemonium 
witE  a  certain  stolidity.     The  excellent  music-halls 
and  circuses  are  equally  crowded,  and  curiously,  so 
are  the  suburban  resorts  on  the  rim  of  the  city. 
Among    the    larger    places,    perhaps,    the    Cafe 
Americain,  on  the  Leidsche-Plein,  was  the  least  fe- 
verish, and  this  was  not  to  be  counted  in  its  favor, 
because  the  visitor  to  a  city  which  pullulates  is,  and 
should  be,  happiest  in  pullulating.    The  crowd,  the 
din,  the  elbowing,  the  glitter  for  me,  in  a  town  like 
Amsterdam  1     In  a  town  like  Gouda,  which  none 

84 


AT  KRASNAPOLSKY'S,  AMSTERDAM 


SOME  TOWNS 

should  fail  to  visit  for  the  incomparable  stained- 
glass  in  its  church,  I  am  content  to  be  as  placid  and 
solitary  as  anybody,  and  I  will  follow  a  dancing 
bear  and  a  Gipsy  girl  up  and  down  the  streets 
thereof  with  as  much  simplicity  as  anybody.  But 
Amsterdam  is  the  great,  vulgar,  inspiring  world. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MUSEUMS 

I  DID  not  go  yachting  in  Holland  in  order  to 
visit  museums;  nevertheless,  I  saw  a  few. 
When  it  is  possible  to  step  off  a  yacht  clean  into  a 
museum,  and  heavy  rain  is  falling,  the  temptation 
to  remain  on  board  is  not  sufficiently  powerful  to 
keep  you  out  of  the  museum.  At  Dordrecht  there 
is  a  municipal  museum  manned  by  four  officials. 
They  received  us  with  hope,  with  enthusiasm,  with 
the  most  touching  gratitude.  Their  interest  in  us 
was  pathetic.  They  were  all  dying  of  ennui  in  those 
large  rooms,  where  the  infection  hung  in  clouds  al- 
most visible,  and  we  were  a  specific  stimulant. 
They  seized  on  us  as  the  morphinomaniac  seizes  on 
an  unexpected  find  of  the  drug. 

Just  as  Haarlem  is  the  city  of  Frans  Hals,  so 
Dordrecht  is  the  city  of  Ary  Scheffer.  Posterity 
in  the  end  is  a  good  judge  of  painters,  if  not  of 
heroes,  but  posterity  makes  mistakes  sometimes, 

88 


MUSEUMS 

and  Ary  Scheffer  is  one  of  its  more  glaring  mis- 
takes. (Josef  Israels  seems  likely  to  be  another.) 
And  posterity  is  very  slow  in  acknowledging  an 
error.  The  Dordrecht  museum  is  waiting  for  such 
an  acknowledgment.  When  that  comes,  the  mu- 
seum will  be  burned  down,  or  turned  into  a  brew- 
ery, and  the  officials  will  be  delivered  from  their 
dreadful  daily  martyrdom  of  feigning  ecstatic  ad- 
miration for  Ary  Scheffer.  Only  at  Dordrecht 
is  it  possible  to  comprehend  the  full  baseness,  the 
exquisite  unimportance,  of  Scheffer's  talent.  The 
best  thing  of  his  in  a  museum  full  of  him  is  a  free, 
brilliant  copy  of  a  head  by  Rembrandt  done  at  the 
age  of  eleven.  It  was,  I  imagine,  his  last  tolerable 
work.  His  worst  pictures,  solemnly  hung  here, 
would  be  justifiably  laughed  at  in  a  girls'  school- 
room. But  his  sentimentality,  conventionality, 
and  ugliness  arouse  less  laughter  than  nausea.  By 
chance  a  few  fine  pictures  have  come  into  the  Dor- 
drecht museum,  as  into  most  museums.  Jakob 
Maris  and  Bosboom  are  refreshing,  but  even  their 
strong  influence  cannot  disinfect  the  place  nor  keep 
the  officials  alive.  We  left  the  museum  in  the  nick 
of  time,  and  saw  no  other  visitors. 

89 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

Now,  the  tea-shop  into  which  we  next  went  was 
far  more  interesting  and  esthetically  valuable  than 
the  museum.  The  skipper,  who  knew  every  shop, 
buoy,  bridge,  and  shoal  in  Holland,  had  indicated 
this  shop  to  me  as  a  high-class  shop  for  costly  teas. 
It  was.  I  wanted  the  best  tea,  and  here  I  got  it. 
The  establishment  might  have  survived  from  the 
age  when  Dordrecht  was  the  wealthiest  city  in  Hol- 
land. Probably  it  had  so  survived.  It  was  full  of 
beautiful  utensils  in  practical  daily  use.  It  had  an 
architectural  air,  and  was  aware  of  its  own  dignity. 
The  head-salesman  managed  to  convey  to  me  that 
the  best  tea — that  was,  tea  that  a  connoisseur  would 
call  tea — cost  two  and  a  half  florins  a  pound.  I 
conveyed  to  him  that  I  would  take  two  pounds  of 
the  same.  The  head-salesman  then  displayed  to 
me  the  tea  in  its  japanned  receptacle.  He  next 
stood  upright  and  expectant,  whereupon  an  acolyte, 
in  a  lovely  white  apron,  silently  appeared  from  the 
Jan-Steen  shadows  at  the  back  of  the  shop,  and 
with  solemn  gestures  held  a  tun-dish  over  a  paper 
bag  for  his  superior  to  pour  tea  into.  Having  per- 
formed his  share  in  the  rite,  he  disappeared.  The 
parcel  was  slowly  made  up,  every  part  of  the  proc- 

90 


THE  CAFE  AMERICAIN,  AMSTERDAM 


MUSEUMS 

ess  being  evidently  a  matter  of  secular  tradition. 
I  tendered  a  forty-gulden  note.  Whereon  the 
merchant  himself  arrived  in  majesty  at  the  counter 
from  his  office,  and  offered  the  change  with  punc- 
tilio. He  would  have  been  perfect,  but  for  a  hole 
in  the  elbow  of  his  black  alpaca  coat.  I  regretted 
this  hole.  We  left  the  shop  stimulated,  and  were 
glad  to  admit  that  Dordrecht  had  atoned  to  us  for 
its  museum.  Ary  Scheffer  might  have  made  an 
excellent  tea-dealer. 

The  museum  at  Dordrecht  only  showed  in  excess 
an  aspect  of  displayed  art  which  is  in  some  degree 
common  to  all  museums.  For  there  is  no  museum 
which  is  not  a  place  of  desolation.  Indeed,  I  re- 
member to  have  seen  only  one  collection  of  pictures, 
public  or  private,  in  which  every  item  was  a  cause 
of  joy — that  of  Mr.  Widener,  near  Philadelphia. 
Perhaps  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the  tourist's 
Holland  is  the  fact  that  the  small  museum  at  Haar- 
lem, with  its  prodigious  renown,  does  not  disap- 
point. You  enter  it  with  disturbing  preliminaries, 
each  visitor  having  to  ring  a  bell,  and  the  locus  is 
antipathetic;  but  one's  pulse  is  immediately  quick- 
ened by  the  verve  of  those  headstrong  masterpieces 

93 


of  Hals.  And  Ruysdael  and  Jan  Steen  are  influ- 
ential here,  and  even  the  mediocre  paintings  have 
often  an  interest  of  perversity,  as  to  which  natu- 
rally the  guide-books  say  naught. 

The  Teyler  Museum  at  Haarlem  also  has  a  few 
intoxicating  works,  mixed  up  with  a  sinister  as- 
sortment of  mechanical  models.  And  its  aged  at- 
tendant, who  watched  over  his  finger-nails  as  over 
adored  children,  had  acquired  the  proper  attitude, 
at  once  sardonic  and  benevolent,  for  a  museum  of 
the  kind.  He  was  peculiarly  in  charge  of  very  fine 
sketches  by  Rembrandt,  of  which  he  managed  to 
exaggerate  the  value. 

Few  national  museums  of  art  contain  a  higher 
percentage  of  masterpieces  than  the  Mauritshuis  at 
The  Hague.  And  one's  first  sight  of  Rembrandt's 
"Lesson  in  Anatomy"  therein  would  constitute  a 
dramatic  event  in  any  yachting  cruise.  But  my 
impression  of  the  Mauritshuis  was  a  melancholy 
one,  owing  to  the  hazard  of  my  visit  being  on  the 
great  public  holiday  of  the  year,  when  it  was  filled 
with  a  simple  populace,  who  stared  coarsely  around, 
and  understood  nothing — nothing.  True,  they 
gazed  in  a  hypnotized  semicircle  at  "The  Lesson  in 

94 


MUSEUMS 

Anatomy,"  and  I  can  hear  amiable  persons  saying 
that  the  greatest  art  will  conquer  even  the  ignorant 
and  the  simple.  I  don't  believe  it.  I  believe  that 
if  "The  Lesson  in  Anatomy"  had  been  painted  by 
Carolus-Duran,  in  the  manner  of  Carolus-Duran, 
the  ignorant  and  the  simple  would  have  been  hypno- 
tized just  the  same.  And  I  have  known  the  igno- 
rant and  the  simple  to  be  overwhelmed  with 
emotion  by  spurious  trickery  of  the  most  absurd 
and  offensive  kind. 

An  hour  or  two  in  a  public  museum  on  a  national 
holiday  is  a  tragic  experience,  because  it  forces  you 
to  realize  that  in  an  artistic  sense  the  majority  and 
backbone  of  the  world  have  not  yet  begun  to  be 
artistically  civilized.  Ages  must  elapse  before  such 
civilization  can  make  any  appreciable  headway. 
And  in  the  meantime  the  little  hierarchy  of  art,  by 
which  alone  art  lives  and  develops,  exists  precari- 
ously in  the  midst  of  a  vast,  dangerous  population 
— a  few  adventurous  whites  among  indigenous 
hordes  in  a  painful  climate.  The  indigenous 
hordes  may  have  splendid  qualities,  but  they  have 
not  that  one  quality  which  more  than  any  other  vivi- 
fies. They  are  jockeyed  into  paying  for  the  mani- 

95 


festations  of  art  which  they  cannot  enjoy,  and  this 
detail  is  not  very  agreeable  either.  A  string  of 
fishermen,  in  their  best  blue  cloth,  came  into  the 
Mauritshuis  out  of  the  rain,  and  mildly  and  po- 
litely scorned  it.  Their  attitude  was  unmistakable. 
They  were  not  intimidated.  Well,  I  like  that.  I 
preferred  that,  for  example,  to  the  cant  of  ten  thou- 
sand tourists. 

Nor  was  I  uplifted  by  a  visit  to  the  Mesdag  Mu- 
seum at  The  Hague.  Mesdag  was  a  second-rate 
painter  with  a  first-rate  reputation,  and  his  taste, 
as  illustrated  here,  was  unworthy  of  him,  even  al- 
lowing for  the  fact  that  many  of  the  pictures  were 
forced  upon  him  as  gifts.  One  or  two  superb 
works — a  Delacroix,  a  Dupre,  a  Rousseau — could 
not  make  up  for  the  prevalence  of  Mesdag,  Josef 
Israels,  etc.  And  yet  the  place  was  full  of  good 
names.  I  departed  from  the  museum  in  a  hurry, 
and,  having  time  to  spare,  drove  to  Scheveningen 
in  search  of  joy.  Scheveningen  is  famous,  and  is 
supposed  to  rival  Ostend.  It  is  washed  by  the 
same  sea,  but  it  does  not  rival  Ostend.  It  is  a  yel- 
low and  a  gloomy  spot,  with  a  sky  full  of  kites. 
Dutchmen  ought  not  to  try  to  rival  Ostend.  As  I 

96 


IN  THE  VICTORIAN  TEA-ROOM,  AMSTERDAM 


MUSEUMS 

left  Scheveningen,  my  secret  melancholy  was  pro- 
foundly established  within  me,  and  in  that  there  is 
something  final  and  splendid.  Melancholy  when 
it  becomes  uncompromisingly  sardonic,  is  as  brac- 
ing as  a  bath. 

The  remarkable  thing  about  the  two  art  museums 
at  Amsterdam,  a  town  of  fine  architecture,  is  that 
they  should  both — the  Ryks  and  the  municipal — 
be  housed  in  such  ugly,  imposing  buildings.  Now, 
as  in  the  age  of  Michelangelo,  the  best  architects 
seldom  get  the  best  jobs,  and  the  result  is  the  per- 
manent disfigurement  of  beautiful  cities.  Michel- 
angelo often  had  to  sit  glum  and  idle  while  medio- 
cre architects  and  artists  more  skilled  than  he  in 
pleasing  city  councils  and  building-committees 
muddled  away  opportunities  which  he  would  have 
glorified;  but  he  did  obtain  part  of  a  job  now  and 
then,  subject  to  it  being  "improved"  by  some  duffer 
like  Bernini,  who  of  course  contrived  to  leave  a 
large  fortune,  whereas  if  Michelangelo  had  lived 
to-day  he  might  never  have  got  any  job  at  all. 

Incontestably,  the  exterior,  together  with  much 
of  the  interior,  of  the  Ryks  depresses.  Moreover, 
the  showpiece  of  the  museum,  "The  Night- Watch" 

99 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

of  Rembrandt,  is  displayed  with  a  too  particular 
self-consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  curator,  as 
though  the  functionary  were  saying  to  you :  "Hats 
off!  Speak  low!  You  are  in  church,  and  Rem- 
brandt is  the  god."  The  truth  is  that  "The  Night- 
Watch"  is  neither  very  lovable  nor  very  beautiful. 
It  is  an  exhibition-picture,  meant  to  hit  the  won- 
dering centuries  in  the  eye,  and  it  does  so.  But 
how  long  it  will  continue  to  do  so  is  a  nice  question. 
Give  me  the  modern  side  of  the  Ryks,  where  there 
is  always  plenty  of  room,  despite  its  sickly  Josef 
Israels.  The  modern  side  reendowed  me  with 
youth.  It  is  an  unequal  collection,  and  comprises 
some  dreadful  mistakes,  but  at  any  rate  it  is  being 
made  under  the  guidance  of  somebody  who  is  not 
afraid  of  his  epoch  or  of  being  in  the  wrong. 
Faced  with  such  a  collection,  one  realizes  the  short- 
comings of  London  museums  and  the  horror  of  that 
steely  English  official  conservatism,  at  once  timid 
and  ruthless,  which  will  never  permit  itself  to  dis- 
cover a  foreign  artist  until  the  rest  of  the  world  has 
begun  to  forget  him.  At  the  Ryks  there  are  Van 
Goghs  and  Cezannes  and  Bonnards.  They  are 
not  the  best,  but  they  are  there.  Also  there  are 

100 


MUSEUMS 

some  of  the  most  superb  water-colors  of  the  age, 
and  good  things  by  a  dozen  classic  moderns  who 
are  still  totally  unrepresented  in  London.  I 
looked  at  a  celestial  picture  of  women — the  kind  of 
thing  that  Guys  would  have  done  if  he  could — 
painted  perhaps  fifty  years  ago,  and  as  modern  as 
the  latest  Sargent  water-color.  It  was  boldly 
signed  T.  C.  T.  C.?  T.  C.?  Who  on  earth  could 
T.  C.  be?  I  summoned  an  attendant.  Thomas 
Couture,  of  course!  A  great  artist!  He  will  ap- 
pear in  the  National  Gallery,  Trafalgar  Square, 
about  the  middle  of  the  twenty-first  century. 

Then  there  was  Daumier's  "Christ  and  His  Dis- 
ciples," a  picture  that  I  would  have  stolen  had  it 
been  possible  and  quite  safe  to  do  so.  It  might 
seen  incredible  that  any  artist  of  the  nineteenth 
century  should  take  the  subject  from  the  great 
artists  of  the  past,  and  treat  it  so  as  to  make  you 
think  that  it  had  never  been  treated  before.  But 
Daumier  did  this.  It  is  true  that  he  was  a  very 
great  artist  indeed.  Who  that  has  seen  it  and  un- 
derstood its  tender  sarcasm  can  forget  that  group 
of  the  exalted,  mystical  Christ  talking  to  semi-in- 
credulous, unperceptive  disciples  in  the  gloomy  and 

101 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

vague  evening  landscape?  I  went  back  to  the 
yacht  and  its  ignoble  and  decrepit  engine,  full  of 
the  conviction  that  art  still  lives.  And  I  thought 
of  Wilson  Steer's  "The  Music-Room"  in  the  Tate 
Gallery,  London,  which  magnificent  picture  is  a 
proof  that  in  London  also  art  still  lives. 


102 


ON  THE  ZUYDER  ZEE 


PART  II 
THE  BALTIC 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   YACHT   LOST 

OUR  adventures  toward  the  Baltic  began  al- 
most disastrously,  because  I  put  into  the 
planning  of  them  too  much  wisdom  and  calculation. 
We  had  a  month  of  time  at  our  disposal.  Now,  a 
fifty-ton  yacht  in  foreign  parts  thinks  nothing  of  a 
month.  It  is  capable  of  using  up  a  month  in  mere 
preliminaries.  Hence,  with  admirable  forethought, 
I  determined  to  send  the  yacht  on  in  advance.  The 
Velsa  was  to  cross  from  her  home  port,  Brightling- 
sea,  to  the  Dutch  coast,  and  then,  sheltered  by  many 
islands,  to  creep  along  the  coasts  of  Hanover,  Hoi- 
stein,  Schleswig,  and  Denmark,  past  the  mouths  of 
the  Elbe,  Weser,  and  Eider,  to  the  port  of  Esbjerg, 
where  we  were  to  join  her  by  a  fast  steamer  from 
Harwich.  She  was  then  to  mount  still  farther  the 
Danish  coast,  as  far  as  Liim  Fjord  and,  by  a  route 
combining  fjords  and  canals,  cross  the  top  of  the 
Jutland  peninsula,  and  enter  the  desired  Baltic  by 

107 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

Randers  Fjord.  The  banal  way  would  have  been 
through  the  Kiel  Canal.  Yachts  never  take  the 
Liim  Fjord;  but  to  me  this  was  a  fine  reason  for 
taking  the  Liim  Fjord.  Moreover,  English  yachts 
have  a  habit  of  getting  into  trouble  with  the  Ger- 
man Empire  in  the  Kiel  Canal,  and  English  yachts- 
men are  apt  to  languish  in  German  prisons  on 
charges  of  espionage.  I  was  uncertain  about  the 
comforts  provided  for  spies  in  German  prisons,  and 
I  did  not  wish  to  acquire  certitude. 

So  the  yacht  was  despatched.  The  skipper  gave 
himself  the  large  allowance  of  a  fortnight  for  the 
journey  to  Esbjerg.  He  had  a  beautiful  new  30- 
horse-power  engine,  new  sails,  a  new  mast.  Noth- 
ing could  stop  him  except  an  east  wind.  It  is 
notorious  that  in  the  North  Sea  the  east  wind  never 
blows  for  more  than  three  days  together,  and  that 
in  July  it  never  blows  at  all.  Still,  in  this  July  it 
did  start  to  blow  a  few  days  before  the  yacht's  in- 
tended departure.  And  it  continued  to  blow  hard. 
In  a  week  the  skipper  had  only  reached  Harwich, 
a  bare  twenty  miles  from  Brightlingsea.  Then  the 
yacht  vanished  into  the  North  Sea.  The  wind  held 
in  the  east.  After  another  week  I  learned  by  ca- 

108 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

ble  that  my  ship  had  reached  the  Helder,  in  North 
Holland.  By  a  wondrous  coincidence,  my  Dutch 
skipper's  wife  and  family  are  established  at  the  Hel- 
der. The  east  wind  still  held.  The  skipper  spent 
money  daily  in  saddening  me  by  cable.  Then  he 
left  the  Helder,  and  the  day  came  for  us  to  board 
the  mail-steamer  at  Harwich  for  Esbjerg. 

She  was  a  grand  steamer,  newest  and  largest  of 
her  line.  This  was  her  very  first  trip.  She  was 
officered  by  flaxen,  ingenuous,  soft-voiced  Danes, 
who  had  a  lot  of  agreeable  Danish  friends  about 
them,  with  whom  they  chattered  in  the  romantic 
Danish  language,  to  us  exquisite  and  incomprehen- 
sible. Also  she  was  full  of  original  Danish  food, 
and  especially  of  marvelous  and  mysterious  sand- 
wiches, which,  with  small  quantities  of  champagne, 
we  ate  at  intervals  in  a  veranda  cafe  passably  imi- 
tated from  Atlantic  liners.  Despite  the  east  wind, 
which  still  held,  that  steamer  reached  Esbjerg  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

When  I  say  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  I  mean 
twenty-two  hours.  It  was  in  the  dusk  of  a  Satur- 
day evening  that  we  had  the  thrill  of  entering  an 
unknown  foreign  country.  A  dangerous  harbor, 

111 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

and  we  penetrated  into  it  as  great  ships  do,  with 
the  extreme  deliberation  of  an  elephant.  There 
was  a  vast  fleet  of  small  vessels  in  the  basin,  and  as 
we  slid  imperceptibly  past  the  mouth  of  the  basin 
in  the  twilight,  I  scanned  the  multitudinous  masts 
for  the  mast  of  the  Velsa.  Her  long  Dutch 
streamer  was  ever  unmistakable.  It  seemed  to  us 
that  she  ought  to  be  there.  What  the  mail-steamer 
could  do  in  less  than  a  day  she  surely  ought  to  have 
done  in  more  than  a  fortnight,  east  wind  or  no  east 
wind.  On  the  map  the  distance  was  simply  noth- 
ing. 

I  saw  her  not.  Still,  it  was  growing  dark,  and 
my  eyes  were  human  eyes,  though  the  eyes  of  love. 
The  skipper  would  probably,  after  all,  be  on  the 
quay  to  greet  us  with  his  energetic  optimism.  In 
fact,  he  was  bound  to  be  on  the  quay,  somewhere  in 
the  dark  crowd  staring  up  at  the  great  ship,  be- 
cause he  never  failed.  Were  miracles  necessary, 
he  would  have  accomplished  miracles.  But  he  was 
not  on  the  quay.  The  Velsa  was  definitely  not  at 
Esbjerg.  We  felt  lonely,  forlorn.  The  head 
waiter  of  the  Hotel  Spangsberg,  a  man  in  his  way 
as  great  as  the  skipper,  singled  us  out.  He  had  a 

112 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

voice  that  would  have  soothed  the  inhabitants  of 
purgatory.  He  did  us  good.  We  were  convinced 
that  so  long  as  he  consented  to  be  our  friend,  no  se- 
rious harm  could  happen  to  our  universe.  And  the 
hotel  was  excellent,  the  food  was  excellent,  the  ci- 
gars were  excellent.  And  the  three  chambermaids 
of  the  hotel,  flitting  demurely  about  the  long  cor- 
ridor at  their  nightly  tasks,  fair,  clad  in  prints, 
foreign,  separated  romantically  from  us  by  the 
palisades  of  language — the  three  modest  chamber- 
maids were  all  young  and  beautiful,  with  astound- 
ing complexions. 

The  next  morning  the  wind  was  north  by  east, 
which  was  still  worse  than  east  or  northeast  for  the 
progress  of  the  yacht  toward  us.  Nevertheless,  I 
more  than  once  walked  down  across  the  wharves  of 
the  port  to  the  extreme  end  of  the  jetty — about  a 
mile  each  way  each  time — in  the  hope  of  descrying 
the  Velsas  long,  red  streamer  in  the  offing.  It  was 
Sunday.  The  town  of  Esbjerg,  whose  interest  for 
the  stranger  is  strictly  modern  and  sociological,  was 
not  attractive.  Its  main  street,  though  extremely 
creditable  to  a  small  town,  and  a  rare  lesson  to 
towns  of  the  same  size  in  England,  was  not  a  thor- 

113 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

oughfare  in  which  to  linger,  especially  on  Sunday. 
In  the  entire  town  we  saw  not  a  single  beautiful 
or  even  ancient  building.  Further,  the  port  was 
asleep,  and  the  strong,  gusty  breeze  positively  of- 
fensive in  the  deceptive  sunshine. 

We  should  have  been  bored,  we  might  even  have 
been  distressed,  had  we  not  gradually  perceived,  in 
one  passing  figure  after  another,  that  the  standard 
of  female  beauty  in  Esbjerg  was  far  higher  than 
in  any  other  place  we  had  ever  seen.  These  women 
and  girls,  in  their  light  Sunday  summer  frocks,  had 
beauty,  fine  complexions,  grace,  softness,  to  a  de- 
gree really  unusual;  and  in  transparent  sleeves  or 
in  no  sleeves  at  all  they  wandered  amiably  in  that 
northerly  gale  as  though  it  had  been  a  southern 
zephyr.  We  saw  that  our  overcoats  were  an  inele- 
gance, but  we  retained  them.  And  we  saw  that  life 
in  Esbjerg  must  have  profound  compensations. 
There  were  two  types  of  beautiful  women,  one  with 
straight  lips,  and  the  other  with  the  upper  lip  like 
the  traditional  bow.  The  latter,  of  course,  was  the 
more  generously  formed,  acquiescent  and  yet  pout- 
ing, more  blonde  than  the  blonde.  Both  types  had 
the  effect  of  making  the  foreigner  feel  that  to  be 

114 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

a  foreigner  and  a  stranger  in  Esbjerg,  forcibly 
aloof  from  all  the  daily  frequentations  and  intima- 
cies of  the  social  organism,  was  a  mistake. 

In  the  afternoon  we  hired  an  automobile,  osten- 
sibly to  inspect  the  peninsula,  but  in  fact  partly  to 
see  whether  similar  women  prevailed  throughout 
the  peninsula,  and  partly  to  give  the  yacht  a  chance 
of  creeping  in  during  our  absence.  In  our  hearts 
we  knew  that  so  long  as  we  stood  looking  for  it  it 
would  never  arrive.  In  a  few  moments,  as  it 
seemed,  we  had  crossed  the  peninsula  to  Veile,  a 
sympathetic  watering-place  on  its  own  fjord,  and 
were  gazing  at  the  desired  Baltic,  whereon  our 
yacht  ought  to  have  been  floating,  but  was  not.  It 
seemed  a  heavenly  sea,  as  blue  as  the  Mediterra- 
nean. 

We  had  driven  fast  along  rather  bad  and  dusty 
roads,  and  had  passed  about  ten  thousand  one-story 
farmsteads,  brick-built,  splendidly  thatched,  and 
each  bearing  its  date  on  the  walls  in  large  iron  fig- 
ures. These  farmsteads,  all  much  alike,  showed 
that  some  great  change,  probably  for  the  better, 
must  have  transformed  Danish  agriculture  about 
thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  But  though  farmers 

117 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

were  driving  abroad  in  two-horse  vehicles,  and 
though  certain  old  men  strolled  to  and  fro,  smoking 
magnificent  pipes  at  least  a  foot  and  a  half  long, 
the  weight  of  which  had  to  be  supported  with  the 
hand,  there  was  little  evidence  of  opulence  or  even 
of  ease. 

The  passage  of  the  automobile  caused  real  alarm 
among  male  cyclists  and  other  wayfarers,  who,  in 
the  most  absurd,  girlish  manner,  would  even  leap 
across  ditches  to  escape  the  risks  of  it.  The  women, 
curiously,  showed  much  more  valor.  The  dogs 
were  of  a  reckless  audacity.  From  every  farm- 
yard, at  the  sound  of  our  coming,  a  fierce  dog  would 
rush  out  to  attack  us,  with  no  conception  of  our 
speed.  Impossible  to  avoid  these  torpedoes!  We 
killed  one  instantaneously,  and  ran  over  another, 
which  somersaulted,  and,  aghast,  then  balanced  it- 
self on  three  legs.  Scores  of  dogs  were  saved  by 
scores  of  miracles.  Occasionally  we  came  across  a 
wise  dog  that  must  have  had  previous  altercations 
with  automobiles,  and  learned  the  lesson.  By  dusk 
we  had  thoroughly  familiarized  ourselves  with  the 
flat  Danish  landscape,  whose  bare  earth  is  of  a  rich 
gray  purple;  and  as  we  approached  Esbjerg  again, 

118 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

after  a  tour  of  120  miles,  we  felt  that  we  knew  Jut- 
land by  heart,  and  that  the  yacht  could  not  fail  to 
be  waiting  for  us  in  some  cranny  of  the  port,  ready 
to  take  us  to  other  shores.  But  the  yacht  had  not 
come. 

Then  the  head  waiter  grew  to  be  our  uncle,  our 
father,  our  consoler.  It  is  true  that  he  told  us 
stories  of  ships  that  had  set  forth  and  never  been 
heard  of  again ;  but  his  moral  influence  was  invalu- 
able. He  soothed  us,  fed  us,  diverted  us,  inter- 
preted us,  and  despatched  cables  for  us.  We  called 
him  "Ober,"  a  name  unsuitable  to  his  diminutive 
form,  his  few  years,  and  his  chubby  face.  Yet  he 
was  a  true  Ober.  He  expressed  himself  in  four 
languages,  and  could  accomplish  everything.  In 
response  to  all  our  requests,  he  would  murmur  in 
his  exquisitely  soft  voice,  "Oh,  yes!  oh,  yes!"  He 
devised  our  daily  excursions.  He  sent  us  to  Ribe, 
the  one  ancient  town  that  we  saw  on  the  peninsula, 
in  the  cathedral  of  which  was  a  young  girl  who  had 
stepped  out  of  a  picture  by  Memling,  and  who  sold 
post-cards  with  the  gestures  of  a  virgin  saint  and 
the  astuteness  of  a  dealer.  He  sent  us  to  the  island 
of  Fano,  where  the  northeaster  blows  straight  from 

119 


Greenland  across  a  ten-mile  bathing-beach  peopled 
by  fragile  women  who  saunter  in  muslin  in  front  of 
vast  hotels  beneath  a  canopy  of  flags  that  stand  out 
horizontally  in  the  terrible  breeze.  He  provided 
us  with  water-bottles  and  with  plates  (for  palettes), 
so  that  we  could  descend  to  the  multicolored  port, 
and  there,  half  sheltered  from  the  wind  by  a  pile  of 
fish-boxes  and  from  the  showers  by  an  umbrella, 
produce  wet  water-colors  of  fishing-smacks  contin- 
ually in  motion. 

Day  followed  day.  We  had  lived  at  Esbjerg 
all  our  lives.  The  yacht  was  lost  at  sea.  The 
yacht  had  never  existed.  The  wife  of  the  skipper, 
or,  rather,  his  widow,  had  twice  cabled  that  she  had 
no  news.  But  the  Ober  continued  to  bear  our 
misfortunes  with  the  most  astounding  gallantry. 
And  then  there  came  a  cable  from  the  skipper, 
dated  from  the  island  of  Wangeroog.  .  .  .  Wan- 
geroogl  Wangeroog!  What  a  name  for  an  im- 
possible island!  What  a  name  for  an  island  at 
which  to  be  weatherbound !  We  knew  it  not.  Bae- 
deker knew  it  not.  Even  the  Ober  had  not  heard  of 
it.  We  found  it  at  last  on  a  map  more  than  a  hun- 
dred miles  to  the  south.  And  I  had  been  walking 

120 


ENTERING  THE  BALTIC 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

down  to  the  jetty  thrice  a  day  to  gaze  forth  for  the 
Velsa's  wein! 

The  skipper  in  his  cable  asked  us  to  meet  him  at 
Friedrichstadt,  on  the  Eider,  in  Holstein,  Ger- 
many. The  trains  were  very  slow  and  awkward. 
The  Ober  said : 

"Why  do  you  not  take  an  automobile?  Much 
quicker." 

"Yes;  but  the  German  customs?" 

"Everything  shall  be  arranged,"  said  the  Ober. 

I  said: 

"I  don't  see  myself  among  the  German  bureau- 
cracy in  a  hired  car." 

The  Ober  said  calmly: 

"I  will  go  with  you." 

"All  the  way?" 

"I  will  go  with  you  all  the  way.  I  will  arrange 
everything.  I  speak  German  very  well.  Nothing 
will  go  wrong." 

Such  a  head  waiter  deserved  encouragement.  I 
encouraged  him.  He  put  on  his  best  clothes,  and 
came,  smoking  cigars,  He  took  us  faultlessly 
through  the  German  customs  at  the  frontier.  He 
superintended  our  first  meal  at  a  small  German 

123 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

hotel.  I  asked  him  to  join  us  at  table.  He  bowed 
and  accepted.  When  the  meal  was  over,  he  rose 
and  bowed  again.  It  was  a  good  meal.  He  took 
us  through  three  tire-bursts  amid  the  horrid  wastes 
of  Schleswig-Holstein.  He  escorted  us  into  Fried- 
richstadt,  and  secured  rooms  for  us  at  the  hotel. 
Then  he  said  he  must  return.  No !  no !  We  could 
not  let  him  abandon  us  in  the  harsh  monotony  of 
that  excessively  tedious  provincial  town.  But  he 
murmured  that  he  must  depart.  The  yacht  might 
not  arrive  for  days  yet.  I  shuddered. 

"At  any  rate,"  I  said,  "before  you  leave,  inquire 
where  the  haven  is,  and  take  me  to  it,  so  that  I  may 
know  how  to  find  it." 

He  complied.  It  was  a  small  haven;  a  steamer 
and  several  ships  were  in  it.  Behind  one  ship  I 
saw  a  mast  and  a  red  pennant  somewhat  in  the 
style  of  the  Velsa. 

"There,"  I  said,  "my  yacht  has  a  mast  rather 
like  that." 

I  looked  again.  Utterly  impossible  that  the 
Velsa  could  have  arrived  so  quickly ;  but  it  was  the 
Velsa.  Joy!  Almost  tears  of  joy!  I  led  the 
Ober  on  board.  He  said  solemnly: 

124 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

"It  is  very  beautiful." 

So  it  was. 

But  our  things  were  at  the  hotel.  We  had  our 
rooms  engaged  at  the  hotel. 

The  Ober  said : 

"I  will  arrange  everything." 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  our  baggage  was  on 
board,  and  there  was  no  hotel  bill.  And  then  the 
Ober  really  did  depart,  with  sorrow.  Never  shall 
I  look  on  his  like  again.  The  next  day  we  voyaged 
up  the  Eider,  a  featureless  stream  whose  life  has 
been  destroyed  by  the  Kiel  Canal,  to  its  junction 
with  the  Kiel  Canal,  eighty-six  dull,  placid  kilo- 
meters. But  no  matter  the  dullness ;  we  were  afloat 
and  in  motion. 

We  spent  about  seventy-two  hours  in  the  Ger- 
man Empire,  and  emerged  from  it,  at  Kiel,  by  the 
canal,  with  a  certain  relief;  for  the  yacht  had  sev- 
eral times  groaned  in  the  formidable  clutch  of  the 
Fatherland's  bureaucracy.  She  had  been  stopped 
by  telephone  at  Friedrichstadt  for  having  passed 
the  custom-house  at  the  mouth  of  the  Eider,  the  said 
custom-house  not  being  distinguished,  as  it  ought  to 
have  been,  by  the  regulation  flag.  Again  we  were 

125 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

stopped  by  telephone  at  Rendsburg,  on  the  canal, 
for  having  dared  to  ascend  the  Eider  without  a 
pilot.  Here  the  skipper  absolutely  declined  to  pay 
the  pilot-fees,  and  our  papers  were  confiscated,  and 
we  were  informed  that  the  panjandrum  of  the  har- 
bor would  call  on  us.  However,  he  did  not  call  on 
us ;  he  returned  our  papers,  and  let  us  go,  thus  sup- 
porting the  skipper's  hotly  held  theory  that  by  the 
law  of  nations  yachts  on  rivers  are  free. 

We  were  obliged  to  take  a  pilot  for  the  canal. 
He  was  a  nice,  companionable  man,  unhealthy,  and 
gently  sardonic.  He  told  us  that  the  canal  would 
be  remunerative  if  war-ships  paid  dues.  "Only 
they  don't,"  he  added.  Confronted  with  the  prop- 
osition that  the  canal  was  very  ugly  indeed,  he  re- 
pudiated it.  He  went  up  and  down  the  canal 
forever  and  ever,  and  saw  nothing  but  the  ships  on 
it  and  the  navigation  signals.  He  said  that  he  had 
been  piloting  for  twelve  years,  and  had  not  yet  had 
the  same  ship  twice.  And  there  were  150  pilots  on 
the  canal! 

We  put  him  ashore  and  into  the  arms  of  his  wife 
at  Kiel,  in  heavy  rain  and  the  customary  north- 
easter, and  we  pushed  forward  into  the  comparative 

126 


GENTLY  SARDONIC 


THE  YACHT  LOST 

freedom  of  Kiel  Fjord,  making  for  Friedrichsort, 
which  looked  attractive  on  the  chart.  But  Fried- 
richsort was  too  naval  for  us;  it  made  us  feel  like 
spies.  We  crossed  hastily  to  Moltenort,  a  little 
pleasure  town.  Even  here  we  had  not  walked  a 
mile  on  land  before  we  were  involved  in  forts  and 
menacing  sign-boards.  We  retreated.  The  whole 
fjord  was  covered  with  battle-ships,  destroyers, 
submarines,  Hydro-aeroplanes  curved  in  the  atmos- 
phere, or  skimmed  the  froth  off  the  waves.  The 
air  was  noisy  with  the  whizzing  of  varied  screws. 
It  was  enormous,  terrific,  intimidating,  especially 
when  at  dusk  search-lights  began  to  dart  among 
the  lights  of  the  innumerable  fjord  passenger- 
steamers.  We  knew  that  we  were  deeply  involved 
in  the  tremendous  German  system.  Still,  our  blue 
ensign  flew  proudly,  unchallenged. 

The  population  of  Moltenort  was  not  seductive, 
though  a  few  young  men  here  and  there  seemed 
efficient,  smart,  and  decent.  The  women  and  girls 
left  us  utterly  unmoved.  The  major  part  of  the 
visitors  were  content  to  sit  vacantly  on  the  prome- 
nade at  a  spot  where  a  powerful  drain,  discharging 
into  the  fjord,  announced  itself  flagrantly  to  the 

129 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

sense.  These  quiet,  tired,  submissive  persons 
struck  us  as  being  the  raw  slavish  material  of  the 
magnificent  imperial  system,  and  entirely  uncon- 
nected with  the  wondrous  brains  that  organized  it 
and  kept  it  going.  The  next  morning  we  departed 
very  early,  but  huge  targets  were  being  towed  out 
in  advance  of  us,  and  we  effected  our  final  escape 
into  the  free  Baltic  only  by  braving  a  fleet  of  battle- 
ships that  fired  into  the  checkered  sky.  Sometimes 
their  shells  glinted  high  up  in  the  sun,  and  seemed 
to  be  curving  along  the  top  edge  of  an  imaginary 
rainbow.  We  slowly  left  them  astern,  with,  as  I 
say,  a  certain  relief.  Little,  unmilitary  Denmark 
lay  ahead. 


130 


THE  SKIPPER  SHOPPING 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BALTIC    COMMUNITIES 

AT  Vordingborg,  a  small  town  at  the  extreme 
south  of  Sjselland,  the  largest  and  eastern- 
most of  the  Danish  islands,  we  felt  ourselves  to  be 
really  for  the  first  time  in  pure  and  simple  Den- 
mark (Esbjerg  had  a  certain  international  qual- 
ity) .  We  had  sailed  through  the  Langelands  Belt, 
skirting  the  monotonous  agricultural  coasts  of  all 
sorts  of  islands,  great  and  small,  until  one  evening 
we  reached  this  city,  which  looked  imposing  on  the 
map.  When  we  had  followed  the  skipper  ashore 
on  his  marketing  expedition,  and  trodden  all  the 
stony  streets  of  little  Vordingborg,  we  seemed  to 
know  what  essential  Denmark,  dozing  in  the  midst 
of  the  Baltic,  truly  was. 

Except  a  huge  and  antique  fort,  there  was  no 
visible  historical  basis  to  this  town.  The  main 
thoroughfare  showed  none  of  the  dignity  of  tradi- 

133 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

tion.  It  was  a  bourgeois  thoroughfare,  and  com- 
fortable bourgeoises  were  placidly  shopping  therein 
— the  same  little  bourgeoises  that  one  sees  all  over 
the  world.  A  fairly  large  hotel;  sundry  tobacco- 
nists; a  bookseller  who  also  sold  wall-papers;  a 
sausage-shop,  with  a  girl  actuating  an  efficient 
sausage-slicing  machine,  and  in  the  window  an 
electric  fan  whirring  close  io  a  gigantic  sausage. 
In  the  market,  on  a  vague  open  space,  a  few  carts, 
with  their  shafts  on  the  ground ;  a  few  stalls ;  a  few 
women ;  a  butcher  whipping  off  a  hungry  dog ;  three 
cheeses  on  a  stand;  baskets  of  fruit  and  vegetables 
on  the  Danish  ground;  our  skipper  chattering  by 
signs  and  monosyllables  in  the  middle.  That  was 
Vordingborg. 

In  the  churchyard  there  were  only  two  graves. 
The  church  had  no  more  architectural  interest  than 
a  modern  church  in  a  London  suburb,  though  it  was 
older.  We  went  within.  The  numbers  of  the 
hymns  at  the  last  service  were  still  forlornly  stuck 
up  on  the  indicator.  The  altar  and  screen  were 
ingenuously  decorated  in  the  style  of  a  high-class 
booth  at  a  fair.  Three  women  in  huge  disfiguring 
aprons  were  cleaning  the  interior.  Their  cloaks 

134 


and  a  white  umbrella  lay  on  the  stone  floor.  They 
never  even  glanced  at  us.  We  left  the  church,  and 
then  skirting  market-gardens  and  climbing  over 
the  ramparts  of  the  fort,  we  descended  to  the 
mournful  little  railway  station,  and  as  we  watched 
a  little  train  amble  plaintively  in  and  out  of  that 
terminus,  we  thought  of  the  numbers  of  the  hymns 
sung  at  the  last  service  in  the  church,  and  the  im- 
mense devastating  ennui  of  provincial  existence  in 
remote  places  enveloped  us  like  a  dank  fog.  We 
set  sail,  and  quitted  Vordingborg  forever,  lest  we 
might  harden  our  hearts  and  be  unjust  to  Vording- 
borg, which,  after  all,  at  bottom,  must  be  very  like  a 
million  other  townlets  on  earth. 

Compared  with  some  of  the  ports  we  made,  Vord- 
ingborg was  a  metropolis  and  a  center  of  art. 
When  we  had  threaded  through  the  Ulfsund  and 
the  Stege  Strand  and  the  intricacies  of  the  Roges- 
trommen,  we  found  shelter  in  a  village  harbor  of 
the  name  of  Faxo.  Faxo  had  nothing — nothing 
but  a  thousand  trucks  of  marl,  a  girl  looking  out 
of  a  window,  and  a  locked  railway  station.  We 
walked  inland  into  a  forest,  and  encountered  the 
railway  track  in  the  middle  of  the  forest,  and  we 

135 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

walked  back  to  Faxo,  and  it  was  the  same  Faxo, 
except  that  a  splendid  brig  previously  at  anchor  in 
the  outer  roads  was  slipping  away  in  the  twilight, 
and  leaving  us  alone  in  Faxo. 

At  Spotsbjerg,  on  the  north  of  the  island  of 
Sjselland,  a  small,  untidy  fishing  village  with  a  har- 
bor as  big  as  a  swimming-bath,  there  was  not  even 
a  visible  church;  we  looked  vainly  for  any  church. 
But  there  was  a  telephone,  and  on  the  quay  there 
was  a  young  and  pretty  girl  leaning  motionless  on 
her  father's,  or  her  grandfather's,  tarpaulin  shoul- 
der. Full  of  the  thought  that  she  would  one  day 
be  old  and  plain,  we  fled  from  Spotsbjerg,  and 
traveled  an  incredible  distance  during  the  whole  of 
a  bright  Sunday,  in  order  to  refresh  our  mundane 
instincts  at  the  capital  of  the  Jutland  peninsula, 
Aarhus. 

And  on  approaching  Aarhus,  we  ran  into  a  re- 
gatta, and  the  Velsa  had  less  of  the  air  of  an  aristo- 
crat among  the  industrial  classes  than  in  such  ports 
as  Spotsbjerg  and  Faxo.  Further,  a  reporter 
came  to  obtain  a  "story"  about  the  strange  Dutch 
yacht  with  the  English  ensign.  It  was  almost 
equal  to  being  anchored  off  the  Battery,  New  York, 

136 


AN  ARISTOCRAT  AMONG  THE  LABORING  CLASSES 


At  Aarhus  the  pulse  of  the  world  was  beating 
rather  loud.  In  the  windows  of  the  booksellers' 
shops  were  photographs  of  the  director  of  the  mu- 
nicipal theater  surrounded  by  his  troupe  of  stars. 
And  he  exactly  resembled  his  important  brethren 
in  the  West  End  of  London.  I  myself  was  among 
the  authors  performed  in  the  municipal  theater, 
and  I  had  a  strange,  comic  sensation  of  being 
world-renowned.  Crowds  surged  in  the  streets  of 
Aarhus  and  in  its  cafes  and  tram-cars,  and  at  least 
one  of  its  taxicabs  was  driven  by  a  woman.  It  had 
a  really  admirable  hotel,  the  Royal,  with  first-class 
cooking,  and  a  concert  every  night  in  its  winter  gar- 
den, where  the  ruling  classes  met  for  inexpensive 
amusement,  and  succeeded  in  amusing  themselves 
with  a  dignity,  a  simplicity,  and  a  politeness  that 
could  not  possibly  be  achieved  in  any  provincial 
town  in  England,  were  it  five  times  the  size  of 
Aarhus.  And  why? 

Withal,  Aarhus,  I  have  to  confess,  was  not 
much  of  a  place  for  elegance.  Its  women  failed, 
and  the  appearance  of  the  women  is  the  true  test 
of  a  civilization.  So  far  in  our  Danish  experience 
the  women  of  Esbjerg  stood  unrivaled.  The  la- 

139 


dies  of  Aarhus,  even  the  leading  ladies  gathered 
together  in  the  Royal  Hotel,  lacked  style  and 
beauty.  Many  of  them  had  had  the  sense  to  retain 
the  national  short  sleeve  against  the  ruling  of  fash- 
ion, but  they  did  not  arrive  at  any  effect  of  in- 
dividuality. They  were  neither  one  thing  nor  the 
other.  Their  faces  showed  kindness,  efficiency, 
constancy,  perhaps  all  the  virtues;  but  they  could 
not  capture  the  stranger's  interest. 

There  was  more  style  at  Helsingor  (Elsinore), 
a  town  much  smaller  than  Aarhus,  but  probably 
enlivened  by  naval  and  military  influences,  by  its 
close  proximity  to  Sweden,  with  train-ferry  com- 
munication therewith,  and  by  its  connection  with 
Hamlet  and  Shakspere.  The  night  ferries  keep 
the  town  unduly  awake,  but  they  energize  it.  Till 
a  late  hour  the  station  and  the  quay  are  busy  with 
dim  figures  of  chattering  youth  in  pale  costumes, 
and  the  departure  of  the  glittering  train-laden 
ferry  to  a  foreign  country  two  miles  off  is  a  roman- 
tic spectacle.  The  churches  of  Helsingor  have  an 
architectural  interest,  and  its  fruit  shops  display 
exotic  fruits  at  high  prices.  Officers  flit  to  and  fro 
on  bicycles.  Generals  get  out  of  a  closed  cab  at 

140 


BALTIC  COMMUNITIES 

the  railway  station,  and  they  bear  a  furled  stand- 
ard, and  vanish  importantly  with  it  into  the  arcana 
of  the  station.  The  newspapers  of  many  countries 
are  for  sale  at  the  kiosk.  The  harbor-master  is  a 
great  man,  and  a  suave. 

The  pride  of  Helsingor  is  the  Kronborg  Castle, 
within  sight  of  the  town  and  most  grandiosely 
overlooking  sea  and  land.  Feudal  castles  are  often 
well  placed,  but  one  seldom  sees  a  renaissance  build- 
ing of  such  heroic  proportions  in  such  a  dramati- 
cally conceived  situation.  The  castle  is  of  course 
used  chiefly  as  a  barracks.  On  entering  the  enor- 
mous precincts,  we  saw  through  a  window  a  private 
sitting  on  a  chair  on  a  table,  in  fatigue  uniform, 
playing  mildly  a  flageolet,  and  by  his  side  on  the  ta- 
ble another  private  in  fatigue  uniform,  with  a  boot 
in  one  hand,  doing  nothing  whatever.  And  from 
these  two  figures,  from  the  whitewashed  bareness 
of  the  chamber,  and  from  the  flageolet,  was  exhaled 
all  the  monstrous  melancholy  of  barrack-life,  the 
same  throughout  the  world. 

Part  of  the  castle  is  set  aside  as  a  museum, 
wherein,  under  the  direction  of  a  guide,  one  is  per- 
mitted to  see  a  collection  of  pictures  the  surpassing 

141 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

ugliness  of  which  nearly  renders  them  interesting. 
The  guide  points  through  a  window  in  the  wall  ten 
feet  thick  to  a  little  plot  of  turf.  "Where  Hamlet 
walked."  No  historical  authority  is  offered  to  the 
visitor  for  this  statement.  The  guide  then  leads 
one  through  a  series  of  large  rooms,  empty  save  for 
an  occasional  arm-chair,  to  the  true  heart  of  the 
Kronborg,  where  he  displayed  to  us  a  seated  statue 
of  Mr.  Hall  Caine,  tinted  an  extreme  unpleasant 
bluish-white.  An  inscription  told  that  it  had  been 
presented  to  Kronborg  by  a  committee  of  English- 
men a  few  years  earlier  to  mark  some  anniversary. 
The  guide  said  it  was  a  statue  of  Shakspere.  I 
could  not  believe  him. 


142 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  DAY'S  SAIL 

ALTHOUGH  there  is  a  lively  pleasure  in 
discovering  even  the  dullest  and  smallest 
towns  and  villages,  the  finest  experience  offered  by 
the  Baltic  is  the  savor  of  the  Baltic  itself  in  a  long 
day's  sail.  I  mean  a  day  of  fourteen  hours  at  least, 
from  six  in  the  morning  till  eight  at  night,  through 
varied  seascapes  and  landscapes  and  varied 
weather.  As  soon  as  the  yacht  leaves  harbor  in 
the  bracing  chill  of  sunrise  she  becomes  a  distinct 
entity,  independent,  self-reliant.  The  half-dozen 
men  on  her,  cut  off  from  the  world,  are  closely 
knitted  into  a  new  companionship,  the  sense  of 
which  is  expressed  not  in  words,  but  by  the  subtle- 
ties of  tone  and  mien ;  and  if  only  one  among  them 
falls  short  of  absolute  loyalty  and  good-will  toward 
the  rest,  the  republic  is  a  failure,  and  the  air  of 
ocean  poisoned.  The  dictum  of  an  older  and  far 
more  practised  yachtsman  than  myself  used  al- 

145 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

ways  to  be,  "I  '11  have  no  man  aboard  my  ship  who 
can't  smile  all  the  time."  It  is  a  good  saying. 
And  it  could  be  applied  to  my  yacht  in  the  Baltic. 
We  had  days  at  sea  in  the  Baltic  which  were  ideal 
and  thrilling  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

To  make  a  final  study  of  the  chart  in  the  cabin 
while  waiting  for  breakfast  is  a  thrilling  act.  You 
choose  a  name  on  the  chart,  and  decide :  "We  will 
go  to  that  name."  It  is  a  name.  It  is  not  yet  a 
town  or  a  village.  It  is  just  what  you  imagine  it 
to  be  until  you  first  sight  it,  when  it  instantly  falsi- 
fies every  fancy.  The  course  is  settled.  The  ship 
is  on  that  course.  The  landmarks  will  suffice  for 
an  hour  or  two,  but  the  sea-marks  must  be  de- 
ciphered on  the  chart,  which  is  an  English  chart, 
and  hence  inferior  in  fullness  and  clearness  to 
either  French  or  Dutch  charts.  Strange,  this,  for 
a  nation  preeminently  maritime!  To  compensate, 
the  English  "Sailing  Directions" — for  example, 
the  "Pilot's  Guide  to  the  Baltic" — are  so  admirably 
written  that  it  is  a  pleasure  to  read  them.  Lucid, 
succinct,  elegant,  they  might  serve  as  models  to  a 
novelist.  And  they  are  anonymous. 

To  pick  up  the  first  buoy  is  thrilling.  We  are 

146 


CONSULTING  THE  CHART 


A  DAY'S  SAIL 

all  equally  ignorant  of  these  waters;  the  skipper 
himself  has  not  previously  sailed  them,  and  we  are 
all,  save  the  cook,  engulfed  below  amid  swaying 
saucepans,  on  the  lookout  for  that  buoy.  It  ought 
to  be  visible  at  a  certain  hour,  but  it  is  not.  The 
skipper  points  with  his  hand  and  says  the  buoy 
must  be  about  there,  but  it  is  not.  He  looks 
through  my  glasses,  and  I  look  through  his;  no 
result.  Then  the  deck-hand,  without  glasses,  cries 
grinning  that  he  has  located  her.  After  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  I  can  see  the  thing  myself.  That  a 
buoy  ?  It  is  naught  but  a  pole  with  a  slightly  swol- 
len head.  Absurd  to  call  it  a  buoy !  Nevertheless, 
we  are  relieved,  and  in  a  superior  manner  we  re- 
concile ourselves  to  the  Baltic  idiosyncrasy  of  em- 
ploying broom-handles  for  buoys.  The  reason  for 
this  dangerous  idiosyncrasy  neither  the  skipper  nor 
anybody  else  could  divine.  Presently  we  have  the 
broom  close  abeam,  a  bobbing  stick  all  alone  in  the 
immense  wilderness  of  water.  There  it  is  on  the 
chart,  and  there  it  is  in  the  water,  a  romantic  mir- 
acle. We  assuage  its  solitude  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  then  abandon  it  to  loneliness. 
We  resume  the  study  of  the  chart;  for  although 

149 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

we  are  quite  sure  of  our  course,  the  skipper  can 
never  be  sure  enough.  My  attention  is  drawn  to 
a  foot-note  that  explains  the  ice-signals  of  the  Bal- 
tic. And  the  skipper  sets  to  telling  tales  of  terror 
about  the  ice,  in  the  Zuyder  Zee  and  other  seas. 
He  tells  how  the  ice  forms  under  the  ship  surrepti- 
tiously, coming  up  from  the  bottom  like  treacle. 
You  say,  "It 's  freezing  to-night,"  and  the  next 
morning  the  ship  can't  move;  and  you  may  die  of 
starvation,  for  though  the  ice  will  hold  the  ship, 
it  won't  hold  you.  The  skipper  knew  men  who 
could  remember  ice  in  the  Zuyder  Zee  in  June. 
He  himself  had  once  oscillated  for  a  whole  week 
between  two  ports  on  the  Zuyder  Zee,  visible  to 
each  other,  pushed  hither  and  thither  by  the  ice, 
and  unable  to  get  anywhere  at  all.  But  ice  was 
less  terrible  than  it  used  to  be,  owing  to  the  in- 
creased strength  and  efficiency  of  ice-breakers. 
And  climate  was  less  rigorous.  Thus  the  skipper 
would  reassure  us  for  a  moment,  only  to  intimidate 
us  afresh.  For  it  seems  that  the  ice  has  a  way  of 
climbing;  it  will  climb  up  over  everything,  and  in- 
close a  ship.  Indeed,  he  was  most  impressive  on 
the  subject  of  ice.  He  said  that  the  twin  horrors 

150 


A  DAY'S  SAIL 

of  the  sea  were  ice  and  fog.  But  of  fog  he  told  no 
tales,  being  occupied  with  the  forward  valve  of  the 
engine.  We  perceived  that  yachtsmen  who  go  out 
when  it  happens  to  suit  them,  between  May  and 
September  only,  can  never  achieve  intimacy  with 
the  entire  individuality  of  the  sea. 

The  weather  has  now  cleared  for  a  while.  The 
sun  is  hot,  the  saloon  skylight  warm  to  the  touch. 
You  throw  off  a  jersey.  The  tumbling  water  is  a 
scale  of  deep  blues,  splendid  against  the  brass  of 
the  bollard  and  the  reddishness  of  the  spars.  The 
engine  is  running  without  a  "knock";  the  sails  are 
nicely  filled;  the  patent  log  is  twirling  aft.  A 
small  rainbow  shines  steadily  in  the  foam  thrown 
up  from  the  bows,  and  a  great  rainbow  stretches 
across  all  heaven,  with  its  own  ghost  parallel  to  it. 
Among  the  large,  soft  clouds  rags  of  dark  cloud 
are  uneasily  floating.  On  the  flat  shores  of  near 
islands  the  same  cereals  ripen  as  ripen  at  home. 
And  this  is  thrilling.  Distant  islands  are  miraged. 
Even  a  distant  battleship  seems  to  be  lifted  clean 
out  of  the  water  by  the  so-called  mirage. 

And  then  a  trading- schooner,  small,  but  much 
larger  than  us,  relentlessly  overhauls  us.  She 

151 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

laughs  at  the  efforts  of  our  engine  to  aid  our  sails, 
and  forges  ahead,  all  slanting,  with  her  dinghy 
slung  up  tight  aft,  over  her  rudder.  And  then  it 
is  the  still  small  voice  of  the  stomach  that  speaks. 
Hunger  and  repletion  follow  each  other  very 
swiftly  on  such  days.  The  after-breakfast  cigar  is 
scarcely  finished  before  a  genuine  curiosity  as  to 
the  menu  of  lunch  comes  to  birth  within.  We 
glance  into  the  saloon.  Yes,  the  white  cloth  is 
laid,  but  we  cannot  eat  cloth.  The  cook  and  the 
chronometer  are  conspiring  together  against  us. 

In  the  afternoon  the  weather  is  thick  and  squally. 
And  we  are  creeping  between  sad  and  forlorn 
veiled  islands  that  seem  to  exude  all  the  melan- 
choly of  the  seas.  There  is  plenty  of  water,  but  only 
in  a  deceiving  horizontal  sense.  The  channel  is 
almost  as  narrow  and  as  tortuous  as  a  Devonshire 
lane.  English  charts  are  criminally  preposterous, 
and  so  are  Danish  brooms.  Hardly  can  one  dis- 
tinguish between  a  starboard  and  a  port  broom. 
Is  the  life  of  a  yacht  to  depend  on  such  negligent 
devices?  The  skipper  is  worried.  And  the  spec- 
tacle of  a  ship  aground  in  mid-sea  does  not  tran- 
quilize.  Sometimes  the  hail  wipes  out  for  a  few 

152 


EMIGRANT  GIRLS  WRITING  POSTAL  CARDS  HOME 


A  DAY'S  SAIL 

seconds  the  whole  prospect.  The  eyes  of  every- 
body are  strained  with  looking  for  distant  brooms. 

Then  we  are  free  of  the  archipelago,  and  also 
the  sky  clears.  The  sun,  turning  orange,  is  behind 
us,  and  the  wind  in  our  teeth.  Ahead  is  a  schooner, 
beating.  And  she  is  the  schooner  of  the  morning. 
Our  engine  now  has  the  better  of  her.  As  we  over- 
take her,  she  runs  away  on  one  tack,  and  comes  back 
on  the  next.  She  bears  down  on  our  stern,  huge, 
black,  glittering.  A  man  and  a  boy  are  all  her 
crew.  This  man  and  this  boy  are  entitled  to  be 
called  mariners,  as  distinguished  from  yachtsmen. 
We  can  see  their  faces  plainly  as  they  gaze  down 
at  us  from  their  high  deck.  And  you  may  see  just 
the  same  faces  on  the  liners  that  carry  emigrants 
from  Denmark  to  the  West,  and  the  same  limbs 
sprawling  on  the  decks  of  the  Esbjerg  steamers,  as 
the  same  hands  scrawl  Danish  characters  on  picture 
postal  cards  to  the  inhabitants  of  these  very  islands. 

The  sea  is  now  purple,  and  the  schooner  a  little 
black  blot  on  the  red  panorama  of  the  sunset;  and 
ahead,  amid  faint  yellow  and  green  fields,  is  a  white 
speck,  together  with  sundry  red  specks  and  blue 
specks.  The  name  on  the  chart!  And  then  the 

155 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

haven  is  descried,  and  a  ring  of  masts  with  flutter- 
ing rags.  And  then  the  lighthouse  and  the  roofs 
detach  themselves,  and  the  actual  mouth  of  the 
haven  appears.  Twilight  falls;  the  engine  is  mod- 
erated ;  the  deck-hand  stands  by  with  a  pole.  Very 
slowly  we  slide  in,  and  the  multitudinous  bright 
tints  of  the  fishing- smacks  are  startlingly  gay  even 
in  the  dusk.  The  skipper  glances  rapidly  about 
him,  and  yells  out  in  Dutch  to  a  fisherman,  who  re- 
plies in  Danish.  The  skipper  shakes  his  head,  at  a 
loss,  and  gives  an  order  to  the  deck-hand.  The 
deck-hand  claws  with  a  pole  at  a  yellow  smack. 
We  have  ceased  to  be  independent.  The  name  on 
the  chart  is  a  name  no  longer.  It  is  a  living  burg, 
a  poor  little  place,  good  enough  to  sleep  in,  and 
no  more.  But  another  stage  on  the  journey  to  that 
magic  capital  Copenhagen. 


156 


PART  III 
COPENHAGEN 


A  VIEW  FROM  THE  BRIDGE— OLD  COPENHAGEN 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  DANISH   CAPITAL 

ACROSS  the  great  expanse  of  Kjoge  Bay, 
Copenhagen  first  became  visible  as  a  group 
of  factory  chimneys  under  a  firmament  of  smoke. 
We  approached  it  rapidly  upon  smooth  water,  and 
ran  into  the  narrowing  bottle-neck  of  Kallebo,  with 
the  main  island  of  Sjselland  to  the  west  and  the 
appendant  island  of  Amager  to  the  east.  Copen- 
hagen stands  on  both,  straddling  over  a  wide  con- 
necting bridge  which  carries  double  lines  of  electric 
trams  and  all  the  traffic  of  a  metropolis.  When 
a  yacht,  even  a  small  one,  wishes  to  enter  the  har- 
bor, this  bridge  is  cut  in  two  and  lifted  into  the 
air,  and  the  traffic  impatiently  champs  its  bit  while 
waiting  for  the  yacht. 

Apparently  they  understand  yachts  at  Copen- 
hagen, as  they  do  in  Holland.  At  the  outer  bar- 
rier of  the  harbor  we  were  not  even  requested  to 
stop.  A  cheerful  and  beneficent  functionary 

161 


cried  out  for  our  name,  our  captain's  name,  our 
tonnage,  and  our  immediate  origin,  and,  his  curi- 
osity being  sated,  waved  us  onward.  The  great 
bridge  bisected  itself  for  us  with  singular  prompti- 
tude. Nevertheless,  the  gold-buttoned  man  in 
charge  thereof  from  his  high  perch  signaled  to  us 
that  our  burgee  was  too  small.  We  therefore,  hav- 
ing nothing  else  handy  to  placate  him,  ran  up  a 
blue  ensign  to  the  masthead;  but  it  looked  so  ex- 
cessively odd  there,  so  acutely  contrary  to  the  Eng- 
lish etiquette  of  yachts,  that  we  at  once  hauled  it 
down  again.  No  further  complaint  was  made. 

We  were  now  in  the  haven,  and  over  the  funnels 
of  many  ships  we  could  see  the  city.  It  was  all 
copper  domes  and  roofs;  and  we  saw  that  it  was  a 
proud  city,  and  a  city  where  exposed  copper  turns 
to  a  beautiful  green  instead  of  to  black,  as  in  Lon- 
don. Splendid  copper  domes  are  the  chief  symp- 
tom of  Copenhagen.  After  all  the  monotonous, 
tiny  provincialism  of  the  peninsula  and  of  the  is- 
lands, it  was  sensational  to  find  a  vast  capital  at 
the  far  end  of  the  farthest  island.  We  thought 
we  were  coming  to  the  end  of  the  world,  and  we 
came  to  a  complete  and  dazzling  city  that  sur- 

162 


passed,  for  example,  Brussels  in  its  imposingness. 
We  turned  westward  out  of  the  main  channel  into 
the  heart  of  the  town,  and  in  a  moment  were  tied 
up  to  a  smack,  and  the  red-and-green  bourse  was 
leaning  over  us ;  the  rattle  and  ringing  and  stamp- 
ing of  horses,  lorries,  tram-cars,  and  taxi-cabs  deaf- 
ened us  on  three  sides;  and  a  bridge  trembling 
with  traffic  barred  our  way. 

Towers  and  spires  rose  beyond  the  bridge; 
crowds  stood  to  gaze  at  us;  steamers  and  ware- 
houses filled  the  prospect  to  the  north;  and  under 
our  bows  the  petrol-engined  gondolas  of  Copen- 
hagen, each  holding  a  dozen  passengers  or  so,  con- 
tinually shot.  We  were  in  the  midst  of  a  terrific 
din,  but  we  cared  not.  We  had  arrived,  and  we 
had  arrived  in  a  grand  town;  we  knew  that  at  the 
first  glance. 

In  something  less  than  half  an  hour  one  of  us 
had  gone  forth  and  returned  with  grave  tidings: 
"This  is  a  most  exciting  city.  I  've  already  seen 
lots  of  beautiful  women,  some  with  lovely  tow-col- 
ored hair."  The  charm  of  distant  Esbjerg  was  at 
last  renewed.  I  went  forth  myself,  into  a  very 
clean,  fresh-looking  city,  with  simple  and  lively  in- 

163 


habitants.  In  a  trice  I  had  gazed  at  the  Thorvald- 
sen  Museum  (which  I  had  no  intention  of  entering, 
Thorvaldsen  being  for  me  on  about  the  same  ar- 
tistic plane  as  the  inexcusable  Ary  Scheffer  of  Dor- 
drecht), the  Christianborg  Palace,  which  had  an 
austere  and  kingly  air,  the  very  modern  and  ad- 
mirable town  hall,  the  old  railway  station,  which 
has  been  transformed  into  the  largest  kinema  in 
the  world,  the  floating  fish  shops  and  fish  restau- 
rants (made  out  of  old  smacks  and  schooners),  the 
narrow,  thronged  shopping  streets,  the  celebrated 
Tivoli  establishment,  and  the  yacht-like  steamers 
that  from  a  quay,  which  might  almost  be  called  the 
gate  to  Sweden,  in  the  very  middle  of  the  town, 
are  constantly  setting  sail  for  Scandinavia.  From 
Copenhagen  you  go  to  Sweden  as  thoughtlessly 
as  in  New  York  you  go  from  Forty-second  to 
Sixty-ninth  Street,  or  in  London  from  the  Bank 
to  Chelsea,  and  with  less  discipline.  If  the 
steamer  has  cast  off,  and  the  captain  sees  you  hur- 
rying up  the  street,  he  stops  his  engines  and  waits 
for  you,  and  you  are  dragged  on  board  by  a  sailc:; 
whereupon  the  liner  departs,  unless  the  captain  hap- 
pens to  see  somebody  else  hurrying  up  the  street. 

164 


A  COPENHAGEN 


THE  DANISH  CAPITAL 

An  hour  in  the  thoroughfares  of  Copenhagen 
was  enough  to  convince  my  feet  that  it  was  not  a 
city  specially  designed  for  pedestrians.  I  limped 
back  to  the  yacht,  and  sent  the  skipper  to  hire  a 
carriage.  He  knew  no  more  of  the  city  than  I 
did,  less  indeed;  he  could  no  more  than  I  speak 
a  single  word  of  Danish;  but  I  felt  sure  that  he 
would  return  with  an  equipage.  What  I  desired 
was  an  equipage  with  a  driver  who  could  speak 
either  English,  French,  or  Dutch.  He  did  return 
with  an  equipage,  and  it  was  overpowering. 
Rather  like  a  second-hand  state  carriage,  it  was 
drawn  by  two  large  gray  horses,  perhaps  out  of  a 
circus,  and  driven  by  a  liveried  being  who  was  al- 
leged to  speak  French.  I  shuddered  at  the  prob- 
able cost  of  this  prodigious  conveyance,  but 
pretended  I  did  not  care.  The  figure  named  was 
just  seven  dollars  a  day.  We  monopolized  the 
carriage  during  our  sojourn,  and  the  days  were 
long;  but  the  coachman  never  complained.  Pos- 
sibly because  he  had  no  language  in  which  to  com- 
plain. We  learned  in  a  moment  that  his  ability  to 
speak  French  was  entirely  mythical.  Then  some 
one  said  that  a  misunderstanding  had  occurred  at 

167 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

the  livery-stables,  and  that  German  was  the  foreign 
language  he  spoke.  But  he  did  not  speak  Ger- 
man either,  nor  anything  else.  He  was  just  an- 
other of  those  strange  creatures  met  in  the  course 
of  travel  who  are  born,  who  mature,  and  who  die 
without  speaking  or  comprehending  any  language 
whatever. 

From  the  height  of  his  spacious  and  sedate  vehi- 
cle we  gazed  down  upon  the  rushing  population  of 
Copenhagen — beautiful  women,  with  lovely  tow- 
colored  hair,  and  simple,  nice-gestured  men.  The 
driver  only  made  one  mistake,  but  it  was  a  bad  one. 
We  wanted  tea,  and  we  asked  him  to  go  to  a  tea- 
garden,  any  tea-garden.  He  smiled,  and  went. 
He  took  us  up  an  interminable  boulevard,  with  a 
special  strip  for  cyclists.  Thousands  upon  thou- 
sands of  cyclists,  all  fair,  passed  and  repassed  us. 
He  went  on  and  on.  One  of  the  horses  fell  lame, 
but  it  made  no  difference.  We  could  not  stop  him. 
And  repetitions  of  the  word  for  tea  in  French  and 
German  had  no  effect  save  to  make  him  smile.  We 
constantly  descried  what  seemed  in  the  distance  to 
be  tea-gardens,  but  they  were  not  tea-gardens. 
We  saw  an  incomprehensible  colony  of  doll's- 

168 


THE  DANISH  CAPITAL 

houses — well-kept  suburban  huts  exteriorly  resem- 
bling houses — in  a  doll's  garden.  We  could  not  con- 
ceive the  nature  of  this  phenomenon,  but  it  was  not 
a  tea-garden.  Presently  the  carriage  was  stopped 
by  a  man  demanding  money.  He  wore  no  uni- 
form, but  conveyed  to  us  that  he  was  an  official  of 
the  town  of  Hillerup,  and  that  strange  carriages 
had  to  pay  forty-eight  ore  in  order  to  traverse  Hil- 
lerup. It  seemed  a  lot  of  money;  but  as  it  only 
amounted  to  sixpence,  we  paid.  The  man  may 
have  been  a  highwayman.  We  looked  at  the  map 
for  Hillerup,  and  found  it  miles  away  from  Copen- 
hagen. 

We  were  now  in  serious  need  of  tea,  and  helpless. 
The  driver  drove  on.  He  conducted  us  through 
half  a  dozen  seaside  resorts  on  the  quite  unjustly 
celebrated  "Danish  Riviera";  he  came  actually  to 
the  end  of  the  tram-line,  and  then  he  curved  inland 
into  a  forest  (more  to  pay).  We  were  now  angry 
and  still  helpless.  The  forest  had  no  end,  and  the 
roads  in  it  no  direction.  Desperate,  we  signaled  to 
him  to  turn  back.  He  would  not.  He  informed 
us  on  his  ringers  that  he  would  be  arriving  in 
twenty  minutes  or  so.  When  he  did  arrive,  we 

169 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

solved  the  mystery.  He  had  confused  the  word 
for  tea  with  the  word  for  deer,  and  had  brought 
us  to  a  well-known  country  resort  called  the  Deer 
Park.  A  few  miserable  tourists  were  in  fact  drink- 
ing cold,  bad  tea  on  a  windy  terrace  overlooking 
a  distant  horizon,  far  beyond  which  lay  Copen- 
hagen. We  swallowed  the  tea,  the  driver  swal- 
lowed beer,  and  we  started  back.  We  had  no 
overcoats,  and  the  Baltic  evening  was  cold.  Trams 
overtook  us  flying  at  a  tremendous  pace  into 
Copenhagen,  and  we  were  behind  a  lame  horse.  In 
the  dusk  we  reached  once  more  the  desirable  city, 
whose  women  never  seemed  more  fair  to  us  than 
they  did  then.  This  adventure  taught  us  that  the 
yachtsman  must  be  prepared  for  any  adventure, 
even  the  wildest. 


170 


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IN  THE  TIVOLI  GARDENS— AMUSEMENTS  DURING  DINNER 


CHAPTER  XI 

CAFES   AND   RESTAURANTS 

THE  most  interesting  thing,  to  the  complete 
stranger,  in  a  large  foreign  city  that  does 
not  live  on  its  own  past  is  not  the  museums,  but 
the  restaurants  and  cafes,  even  in  the  dead  season. 
We  were  told  that  August  was  the  dead  season  in 
Copenhagen,  and  that  all  the  world  was  at  the  sea- 
side resorts.  We  had,  however,  visited  a  number 
of  Danish  seaside  resorts,  and  they  were  without 
exception  far  more  dead  than  Copenhagen.  In 
particular  Marienlyst,  reputed  to  be  the  haunt  of 
fashion  and  elegance,  proved  to  be  a  very  sad,  de- 
serted strand.  Copenhagen  was  not  dead. 

We  went  for  our  first  dinner  to  Wivels  Restau- 
rant, signalized  to  us  by  authority  as  the  finest  in 
Denmark,  a  large,  rambling,  crimson-and-gold 
place,  full  of  waiters  who  had  learned  English  in 
America,  of  hors-d'oeuvre,  and  of  music.  The 
band  was  much  better  than  the  food,  but  it  has  to 

173 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

be  said  that  we  arrived  at  half -past  seven,  when 
Danish  dinner  is  over  and  Danish  supper  not  be- 
gun. Still,  many  middle-class  people  were  uncere- 
moniously and  expensively  eating — in  the  main 
hors-d'oeuvre.  The  metropolitanism  of  Copen- 
hagen was  at  once  apparent  in  this  great  restau- 
rant. The  people  had  little  style,  but  they  had  the 
assurance  and  the  incuriousness  of  metropolitans, 
and  they  were  accustomed  to  throwing  money 
about,  and  to  glare,  and  to  stridency,  and  to  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  waiters,  and  to  being  in  the  swim. 
Wivels  might  show  itself  on  Fifth  Avenue  or  in  the 
Strand  without  blushing.  And  its  food  had  the 
wholesale,  crude  quality  of  the  food  offered  in  these 
renowned  streets  to  persons  in  the  swim. 

Next  we  went  to  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre,  which 
was  just  the  restaurant  of  the  standardized  inter- 
national hotel.  Once  within  its  walls,  and  you 
might  as  well  be  at  Paris,  Aix-les-Bains,  Harro- 
gate,  Rome,  Algiers,  Brussels,  as  at  Copenhagen. 
The  same  menu,  the  same  cooking,  the  same  wait- 
ers, the  same  furniture,  the  same  toothpicks,  and 
the  same  detestable,  self -restrained  English  travel- 
ers, with  their  excruciating  Englishness.  The  cafe 

174 


CAFES  AND  RESTAURANTS 

on  the  ground  floor  of  this  hotel,  overlooking 
a  large  and  busy  circular  place,  with  the 
opera  and  other  necessaries  of  metropolitan  life 
close  by,  was  more  amusing  than  the  restaurant. 
It  was  a  genuine  resort  in  the  afternoon.  The  ex- 
istence of  Copenhagen  rolled  to  and  fro  in  front 
of  its  canopied  terrace,  and  one  might  sit  next  to 
an  English  yachting  party  of  astounding  correct- 
ness and  complacency  ( from  one  of  those  conceited 
three-hundred- ton  boats,  enameled  white,  and  jew- 
eled in  many  holes,  like  a  watch),  or  to  a  couple  of 
Danish  commercials,  or  to  a  dandy  and  his  love. 
Here  we  one  night  singled  out  for  observation  a 
very  characteristic  Danish  young  man  and  young 
woman  with  the  complexions,  the  quiet,  persuasive 
voices,  and  the  soothing  gestures  of  the  North.  It 
was  an  agreeable  sight;  but  when  we  had  carried 
our  observation  somewhat  further,  we  discovered 
that  they  were  an  English  pair  on  their  honey- 
moon. 

In  a  day  or  two,  feeling  more  expert  in  things 
Danish,  we  wanted  a  truly  Danish  restaurant,  un- 
spoiled by  cosmopolitanism.  We  hit  on  it  in  the 
Wiener  Cafe,  appanage  of  the  Hotel  King  of  Den- 

175 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

mark.  A  long,  narrow  room,  anciently  and  curi- 
ously furnished,  with  mid- Victorian  engravings  on 
the  somber  walls.  The  waiters  had  the  austerity 
of  priests  presiding  at  a  rite.  Their  silent  counte- 
nances said  impassively:  "This  is  the  most  select 
resort  in  our  great  and  historic  country.  It  has 
been  frequented  by  the  flower  of  Danish  aristoc- 
racy, art,  and  letters  for  a  thousand  years.  It  has 
not  changed.  It  never  will.  No  upstart  cos- 
mopolitanism can  enter  here.  Submit  yourselves. 
Speak  in  hushed  tones.  Conform  to  all  the  nice- 
ties of  our  ceremonial,  for  we  have  consented  to 
receive  you." 

In  brief,  it  was  rather  like  an  English  bank,  or 
a  historic  hotel  in  an  English  cathedral  town, 
though  its  food  was  better,  I  admit.  The  menu 
was  in  strict  Danish.  We  understood  naught  of 
it,  but  it  had  the  air  of  a  saga.  At  the  close  of 
the  repast,  the  waiter  told  us  that,  for  the  prix  fixe, 
we  had  the  choice  between  cake  and  cheese.  I  said, 
"Will  you  let  me  have  a  look  at  the  cake,  and  then 
I'll  decide."  He  replied  that  he  could  not;  that 
the  cake  could  not  be  produced  unless  it  was 
definitively  ordered.  The  strange  thing  was  that  he 

176 


A  SKIPPER  ON  A  BICYCLE 


persisted  in  this  attitude.  Cake  never  had  been 
shown  on  approval  at  the  Wiener  Cafe  of  the  Hotel 
King  of  Denmark,  and  it  never  would  be.  I  bowed 
the  head  before  an  august  tradition,  and  ordered 
cheese.  The  Wiener  Cafe  ought  to  open  a  branch 
in  London;  it  was  the  most  English  affair  I  have 
ever  encountered  out  of  England. 

Indeed,  Copenhagen  is  often  exquisitely  Eng- 
lish. That  very  night  we  chose  the  restaurant  of 

the  Hotel for  dinner.  The  room  was  darkly 

gorgeous,  silent,  and  nearly  full.  We  were  curtly 
shown  to  an  empty  table,  and  a  menu  was  flung  at 
us.  The  head  waiter  and  three  inefficient  under 
waiters  then  totally  ignored  us  and  our  signals  for 
fifteen  minutes;  they  had  their  habitues  to  serve. 
At  the  end  of  fifteen  minutes  we  softly  and  apolo- 
getically rose  and  departed,  without  causing  any 
apparent  regret  save  perhaps  to  the  hat-and-coat 
boy,  whom  we  basely  omitted  to  tip. 

We  roved  in  the  wet,  busy  Sunday  streets, 
searching  hungrily  for  a  restaurant  that  seemed  re- 
ceptive, that  seemed  assimilative,  and  luck  guided 
us  into  the  Cafe  de  1'Industrie,  near  the  Tivoli. 
The  managers  of  this  industrious  cafe  had  that  pe- 

179 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

culiar  air,  both  independent  and  amicable,  whicb 
sits  so  well  on  the  directors  of  an  organism  that  is 
firmly  established  in  the  good-will  of  the  flourish- 
ing mass.  No  selectness,  no  tradition,  no  formal- 
ity, no  fashion,  no  preposterous  manners  about  the 
Cafe  de  1'Industrie,  but  an  aspect  of  solid,  rather 
vulgar,  all-embracing,  all-forgiving  prosperity. 
It  was  not  cheap,  neither  was  it  dear.  It  was 
gaudy,  but  not  too  gaudy.  The  waiters  were  men 
of  the  world,  experienced  in  human  nature,  occu- 
pied, hasty,  both  curt  and  expansive,  not  servile, 
not  autocratic.  Their  faces  said:  "Look  here,  I 
know  the  difficulties  of  running  a  popular  restau- 
rant, and  you  know  them,  too.  This  is  not  heaven, 
especially  on  a  Sunday  night;  but  we  do  our  best, 
and  you  get  value  for  your  money." 

The  customers  were  samples  of  all  Copenhagen. 
They  had  money  to  spend,  but  not  too  much. 
There  were  limits  to  their  recklessness  in  the  pur- 
suit of  joy.  They  were  fairly  noisy,  quite  without 
affectation,  fundamentally  decent,  the  average 
Danish.  Elegance  was  rarer  than  beauty,  and 
spirituality  than  common  sense,  in  that  restaurant. 
We  ate  moderately  in  the  diu  and  clash  of  hors- 

180 


CAFES  AND  RESTAURANTS 

d'oeuvre,  mural  decorations,  mirrors,  and  music, 
and  thanked  our  destiny  that  we  had  had  the  su- 
perlative courage  to  leave  the  Hotel ,  with  its 

extreme  correctitude. 

Finally,  among  our  excursions  in  restaurants, 
must  be  mentioned  a  crazy  hour  in  the  restaurant 

of  the  Hotel ,  supreme  example  of  what  the 

enterprising  spirit  of  modern  Denmark  can  accom- 
plish when  it  sets  about  to  imitate  the  German  art 
nouveau.  The is  a  grand  hotel  in  which  every- 
thing, with  the  most  marvelous  and  terrifying  in- 
genuity, has  been  designed  in  defiance  of  artistic 

tradition.     A  fork  at  the resembles  no  other 

fork  on  earth,  and  obviously  the  designer's  first  and 
last  thought  was  to  be  unique.  It  did  not  matter 
to  him  what  kind  of  fork  he  produced  so  long  as  it 
was  different  from  any  previous  fork  in  human  his- 
tory. The  same  with  the  table-cloth,  the  flower- 
vase,  the  mustard-pot,  the  chair,  the  carpet,  the 
dado,  the  frieze,  the  tessellated  pavement,  the  stair- 
rail,  the  wash-basin,  the  bedstead,  the  quilt,  the  very 
door-knobs.  The  proprietors  of  the  place  had  or- 
dered a  new  hotel  in  the  extreme  sense,  and  their 
order  had  been  fulfilled.  It  was  a  prodigious  un- 

181 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

dertaking,  and  must  certainly  have  been  costly. 
It  was  impressive  proof  of  real  initiative.  It  in- 
timidated the  beholder,  who  had  the  illusion  of  be- 
ing on  another  planet.  Its  ultimate  effect  was  to 
outrival  all  other  collections  of  ugliness.  I  doubt 
whether  in  Berlin  itself  such  ingenious  and  com- 
plete ugliness  could  be  equaled  in  the  same  cubic 
space.  My  idea  is  that  the  creators  of  the  Hotel 
may  lawfully  boast  of  standing  alone  on  a  pin- 
nacle. 

It  was  an  inspiration  on  the  part  of  the  creators, 
when  the  hotel  was  finished  to  the  last  salt-spoon, 
to  order  a  number  of  large  and  particularly  bad 
copies  of  old  masters,  in  inexpensive  gilt  frames, 
and  to  hang  them  higgledy-piggledy  on  the  walls. 
The  resulting  effect  ©f  grotesquery  is  overwhelm- 
ing. Nevertheless,  the justly  ranks  as  one  of 

the  leading  European  hotels.  It  is  a  mercy  that 
the  architect  and  the  other  designers  were  forbidden 
to  meddle  with  the  cooking,  which  sins  not  by  any 
originality. 

The  summary  and  summit  of  the  restaurants 
and  cafes  of  Copenhagen  is  the  Tivoli.  New  York 
has  nothing  like  the  Tivoli,  and  the  Londoner  can 

182 


SWEDISH  EXERCISES  ON  DECK 


CAFES  AND  RESTAURANTS 

only  say  with  regret  that  the  Tivoli  is  what  Earl's 
Court  ought  to  be,  and  is  not.  The  Tivoli  com- 
prises, within  the  compass  of  a  garden  in  the  midst 
of  the  city,  restaurants,  cafes,  theater,  concert-hall, 
outdoor  theater,  bands,  pantomime,  vaudeville, 
dancing-halls,  and  very  numerous  side-shows  on 
both  land  and  water.  The  strangest  combinations 
of  pleasure  are  possible  at  the  Tivoli.  You  can, 
for  instance,  as  we  did,  eat  a  French  dinner  while 
watching  a  performance  of  monkeys  on  a  tight- 
rope. The  opportunities  for  weirdness  in  felicity 
are  endless.  We  happened  to  arrive  at  Copen- 
hagen just  in  time  for  the  fetes  celebrating  the 
seventieth  anniversary  of  the  Tivoli,  which  is  as 
ancient  as  it  is  modern.  On  the  great  night  the 
Tivoli  reveled  until  morning.  It  must  be  the  pride 
of  the  populace  of  Copenhagen,  and  one  of  the 
city's  dominating  institutions.  It  cannot  be  ig- 
nored. It  probably  uses  more  electric  light  than 
any  other  ten  institutions  put  together.  And  how- 
ever keenly  you  may  resent  its  commonplace  attrac- 
tion, that  attraction  will  one  day  magnetize  you  to 
enter  its  gates — at  the  usual  fee. 

I  estimate  that  I  have  seen  twenty  thousand  peo- 

185 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

pie  at  once  in  the  Tivoli,  not  a  bad  total  for  one 
resort  in  a  town  of  only  half  a  million  inhabitants. 
And  the  twenty  thousand  were  a  pleasant  sight  to 
the  foreign  observer,  not  merely  for  the  pervading 
beauty  and  grace  of  the  women,  which  was  remark- 
able, but  also  for  the  evident  fact  that  as  a  race  the 
Danish  know  how  to  enjoy  themselves  with  gaiety, 
dignity,  and  simplicity.  Their  demeanor  was  a 
lesson  to  Anglo-Saxons,  who  have  yet  to  discover 
how  to  enjoy  themselves  freely  without  being  either 
ridiculous  or  vulgar  or  brutish.  The  twenty  thou- 
sand represented  in  chief  the  unassuming  middle- 
class  of  Copenhagen. 

There  were  no  doubt  millionaires,  aristocrats, 
"nuts,"  rascals,  odalisks,  and  mere  artisans  among 
the  lot,  but  the  solid  bulk  was  the  middle-class, 
getting  value  for  its  money  in  an  agreeable  and 
unexceptionable  manner.  The  memory  of  those 
thousands  wandering  lightly  clad  in  the  cold  North- 
ern night,  under  domes  and  festoons  and  pillars  of 
electric  light,  amid  the  altercations  of  conflicting 
orchestras,  or  dancing  in  vast,  stuffy  inclosures,  or 
drinking  and  laughing  and  eating  hors-d'oeuvre  un- 
der rustling  trees,  or  submitting  gracefully  to 

186 


CAFES  AND  RESTAURANTS 

Wagnerian  overtures  in  a  theater  whose  glazed 
aisles  were  two  restaurants,  or  floating  on  icy  lakes, 
or  just  beatifically  sitting  on  al-fresco  seats  in 
couples — this  memory  remains  important  in  the 
yachtsman's  experiences  of  the  Baltic. 


187 


CHAPTER  XII 

ARISTOCRACY   AND   ART 

THE  harbor-master  would  not  allow  us  to  re- 
main for  more  than  three  days  in  our  origi- 
nal berth,  which  served  us  very  well  as  a  sort  of 
grand  stand  for  viewing  the  life  of  Copenhagen. 
His  theory  was  that  we  were  in  the  way  of  honest 
laboring  folk,  and  that  we  ought  to  be  up  in  the 
"sound,"  on  the  northeastern  edge  of  the  city, 
where  the  yachts  lie.  We  contested  his  theory,  but 
we  went,  because  it  is  unwise  to  quarrel  with  a  bu- 
reaucracy of  whose  language  you  are  ignorant. 

The  sound  did  not  suit  us.  The  anchorage  was 
opposite  a  coaling  station,  and  also  opposite  a  ship- 
building yard,  and  from  the  west  came  a  strong 
odor  out  of  a  manufactory  of  something  unpleas- 
ant. We  could  have  tolerated  the  dust,  the  noise, 
and  the  smell,  but  what  we  could  not  tolerate  was 
the  heavy  rolling,  for  the  north  wind  was  blowing 
and  the  anchorage  exposed  to  it.  Indeed,  the 

188 


THE  SOUND:  LANDING  STAGE  OF  THE  YACHT  CLUB 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  ART 

Royal  Danish  Yacht  Club  might  have  chosen  more 
comfortable  quarters  for  itself.  We  therefore  un- 
ostentatiously weighed  anchor  again,  and  reentered 
the  town,  and  hid  ourselves  among  many  business- 
like tugs  in  a  little  creek  called  the  New  Haven, 
whose  extremity  was  conveniently  close  to  the  Cafe 
d'Angleterre.  We  hoped  that  the  prowling  har- 
bor-master would  not  catch  sight  of  us,  and  he  did 
not. 

The  aristocratic  and  governing  quarter  of  the 
town  lay  about  us,  including  the  Bregade,  a  street 
full  of  antiquaries,  marble  churches,  and  baroque 
houses,  and  the  Amalienborg  Palace,  which  is  really 
four  separate  similar  palaces  (in  an  octagonal 
place)  thrown  into  one.  Here  all  the  prospects 
and  vistas  were  dignified,  magnificent,  and  proudly 
exclusive.  The  eighteenth  century  had  nobly  sur- 
vived, when  the  populace  was  honestly  regarded 
as  a  horde  created  by  divine  providence  in  order 
that  the  ruling  classes  might  practise  upon  it  the 
art  of  ruling.  There  was  no  Tivoli  when  those 
beautiful  pavements  were  made,  and  as  you  stand 
on  those  pavements  and  gaze  around  at  the  royal 
grandiosity,  speckless  and  complete,  you  can  almost 

101 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

imagine  that  even  the  French  Revolution  has  not 
yet  occurred.  The  tiny,  colored  sentry  at  the  vast, 
gray  gates  is  still  living  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  architecture  is  not  very  distinguished,  but  it 

has  style.     It  shames  the Hotel.     The  Fred- 

eriks  Church,  whose  copper  dome  overtops  the 
other  copper  domes,  is  a  fair  example  of  the  quar- 
ter. Without  being  in  the  least  a  masterpiece,  it 
imposes  by  its  sincerity  and  its  sense  of  its  own 
importance.  And  the  interior  is  kept  as  scrupu- 
lously as  a  boudoir.  The  impeccability  of  the  mar- 
ble flooring  is  wondrous,  and  each  of  the  crimson 
cushions  in  the  polished  pews  is  like  a  lady's  pillow. 
Nothing  rude  can  invade  this  marmoreal  fane. 

The  Rosenberg  Palace,  not  far  off,  is  open  to  the 
public,  so  that  all  may  judge  what  was  the  life  of 
sovereigns  in  a  small  country,  and  what  probably 
still  is.  The  royal  villas  outside  Florence  are  very 
ugly,  but  there  is  a  light  grace  about  their  furnish- 
ing which  lifts  them  far  above  the  heavy,  stuffy, 
tasteless  mediocrity  of  such  homes  as  the  Rosen- 
berg. Badly  planned,  dark,  unhygienic,  crammed 
with  the  miscellaneous  ugliness  of  generations  of 
royal  buying,  the  Rosenborg  is  rather  a  sad  sight 

192 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  ART 

to  people  of  taste;  and  the  few  very  lovely  things 
that  have  slipped  in  here  and  there  by  inadvertence 
only  intensify  its  mournfulness.  The  phantoms  of 
stupid  courtiers  seem  to  pervade,  strictly  according 
to  etiquette,  its  gloomy  salons.  And  yet  occasion- 
ally, in  the  disposition  of  an  arm-chair  or  a  screen, 
one  realizes  that  it  must,  after  all,  have  been  a 
home,  inhabited  by  human  beings  worthy  of  sym- 
pathy. It  is  the  most  bourgeois  home  I  ever  en- 
tered. In  a  glass  case,  with  certain  uniforms,  were 
hung  the  modern  overcoat  (a  little  frayed)  and  the 
hat  of  a  late  monarch.  They  touched  the  heart 
of  the  sardonic  visitor,  their  exposure  was  so 
na'ive. 

Even  more  depressing  than  this  mausoleum  of 
nineteenth-century  manners  was  the  museum  of  art. 
As  a  colossal  negation  of  art,  this  institution  ranks 
with  the  museum  of  Lausanne.  It  is  an  enormous 
and  ugly  building,  full  of  enormous  ugliness  in 
painting  and  sculpture.  It  contained  a  fine  Rem- 
brandt— "Christ  at  Emmaus" — and  one  good  mod- 
ern picture,  a  plowing  scene  by  Wilhelmson.  We 
carefully  searched  the  immense  rooms  for  another 
good  modern  picture,  and  found  it  not.  Even  the 

193 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

specimens  of  Gauguin,  Van  Gogh,  and  Bonnard 
were  mediocre. 

The  sculpture  was  simply  indescribable.  The 
eye  roamed  like  a  bird  over  the  waters  of  the  del- 
uge, and  saw  absolutely  nothing  upon  which  to 
alight  with  safety.  Utter  desolation  reigned. 
The  directors  of  this  museum  had  never,  save  in 
the  case  of  Wilhelmson,  been  guilty  of  an  inadver- 
tence. Their  instinct  against  beauty  in  any  form 
was  unerring.  Imagine  the  stony  desert  of  rooms 
and  corridors  and  giant  staircases  on  a  wet  Sunday 
morning,  echoing  to  the  footsteps  of  the  simple 
holiday  crowd  engaged  patriotically  in  the  admira- 
tion of  Danish  art;  imagine  ingenuous,  mackin- 
toshed  figures  against  the  vast  flanks  of  stiff  and 
terrific  marble  Venuses  and  other  gods;  imagine 
the  whispering  in  front  of  anecdotes  in  paint;  im- 
agine the  Inferno  of  an  artist — and  you  have  the 
art  museum,  the  abode  and  lurking-place  of  ever- 
lasting tedium. 

Quite  different  is  the  Glyptothek,  a  museum 
whose  existence  is  due  to  private  enterprise  and 
munificence.  It  is  housed  in  an  ugly  and  ill- 
planned  building,  but  the  contents  are  beautiful, 

194 


THE  GLYPTOTHEK-CLASSIC  SCULPTURE  AND  MODERN  WOMEN 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  ART 

very  well  arranged,  and  admirably  exposed.  The 
Glyptothek  has  an  entrancing  small  picture  by 
Tiepolo,  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  meeting,  which 
I  was  informed  must  be  a  study  for  a  larger  picture 
in  Venice.  It  alone  should  raise  the  museum  to  a 
shrine  of  pilgrimage,  and  it  is  not  even  mentioned 
in  Baedeker!  But  the  Glyptothek  triumphs 
chiefly  by  its  sculpture.  Apart  from  its  classical 
side,  it  has  a  superb  collection  of  Meuniers,  which 
impressed,  without  greatly  pleasing,  me ;  a  roomful 
of  Rodin  busts  which  are  so  honest  and  lifelike  and 
jolly  that  when  you  look  at  them  you  want  to  laugh 
— you  must  laugh  from  joy.  And  the  Carpeaux 
busts  of  beautiful  women — what  a  profound  and 
tranquil  satisfaction  in  gazing  at  them  I 

Some  of  the  rooms  at  the  Glyptothek  are  magical 
in  their  effect  on  the  sensibility.  They  would 
make  you  forget  wife  and  children,  yachts,  income 
tax,  and  even  the  Monroe  Doctrine.  Living  Dan- 
ish women  were  apposite  enough  to  wander  about 
the  sculpture  rooms  for  our  delectation,  making 
delicious  contrasts  against  the  background  of  mar- 
ble groups. 


197 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   RETURN 

WE  left  Copenhagen  with  regrets,  for  the  en- 
tity of  the  town  was  very  romantic  and 
attractive.  Even  the  humble  New  Haven,  where 
we  sheltered  from  the  eye  of  the  harbor-master, 
had  its  charm  for  us.  It  was  the  real  sailors'  quar- 
ter, thoroughly  ungentlemanly  and  downright. 
The  shops  on  each  side  of  the  creek  were  below 
the  level  of  the  street  and  even  of  the  water,  and 
every  one  of  them  was  either  a  cafe,  with  mysteri- 
ous music  beating  behind  glazed  doors,  or  an 
emporium  of  some  sort  for  sailors.  Revelries  be- 
gan in  the  afternoon,,  You  might  see  a  nice  neat 
Danish  wife  guiding  an  obstreperously  intoxicated 
Danish  sailor  down  the  steps  leading  to  a  cigar 
shop.  Not  a  pleasant  situation  for  a  nice  wife! 
But,  then,  you  reflected  that  he  was  a  sailor,  and 
that  he  had  doubtless  been  sober  and  agreeable  a 
short  while  before,  and  would  soon  be  sober  and 

198 


THE  RETURN 

agreeable  again ;  and  that  perhaps  there  were  great 
compensations  in  his  character.  At  night  Bacchus 
and  Pan  were  the  true  gods  of  that  quarter,  and 
the  worship  of  them  was  loud  and  yet  harmonious. 

We  prepared  reluctantly  to  depart;  the  engine 
also.  The  engine  would  not  depart,  and  it  was  a 
new  engine.  Two  hours  were  spent  in  wheedling 
and  conciliating  its  magneto.  After  that  the  boat 
traveled  faster  than  it  had  ever  traveled.  We 
passed  out  of  Copenhagen  into  the  sound,  leaving 
a  noble  array  of  yachts  behind,  and  so  up  the  sound. 
Soon  Copenhagen  was  naught  but  a  bouquet  of 
copper  domes,  and  its  beautiful  women  became 
legendary  with  us,  and  our  memory  heightened 
their  beauty.  And  then  the  engine  developed  a 
"knock."  Now,  in  a  small  internal-conbustion  en- 
gine a  "knock"  may  be  due  to  bad  petrol  or  to  a 
misplacement  of  the  magneto  or  to  a  hundred  other 
schisms  in  the  secret  economy  of  the  affair.  We 
slowed  to  half-speed  and  sought  eagerly  the  origin 
of  the  "knock,"  which,  however,  remained  inexpli- 
cable. We  were  engloomed;  we  were  in  despair. 

We  had  just  decided  to  stop  the  engine  when  it 
stopped  of  itself,  with  a  fearful  crash  of  broken 

199 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

metal.  One  side  of  the  casing  was  shattered.  The 
skipper's  smile  was  tragical.  The  manliness  of  all 
of  us  trembled  under  the  severity  of  the  ordeal 
which  fate  had  administered.  To  open  out  the  en- 
gine-box and  glance  at  the  wreck  in  the  depths 
thereof  was  heart-rending.  We  could  not  closely 
examine  the  chaos  of  steel  and  brass  because  it  was 
too  hot,  but  we  knew  that  the  irremediable  had  oc- 
curred in  the  bowels  of  the  Velsa.  We  made  sail, 
and  crawled  back  to  the  sound,  and  mournfully  an- 
chored with  our  unseen  woe  among  the  other  yachts. 
The  engine  was  duly  inspected  bit  by  bit;  and 
it  appeared  that  only  the  bearing  of  the  forward 
piston  was  broken,  certainly  owing  to  careless 
mounting  of  the  engine  in  the  shops.  It  was  an 
enormous  catastrophe,  but  perhaps  not  irremedia- 
ble. Indeed,  within  a  short  time  the  skipper  was 
calculating  that  he  could  get  a  new  bearing  made 
in  Copenhagen  in  twenty-four  hours.  Anyhow, 
we  had  to  reconcile  ourselves  to  a  second  visit  to 
Copenhagen.  And  Copenhagen,  a  few  hours 
earlier  so  sweet  a  name  in  our  ears,  was  now  hate- 
ful to  us,  a  kind  of  purgatory  to  which  we  were 
condemned  for  the  sins  of  others. 

200 


: :  .--iS=- — •"  i          , 3f  .; 


ENJOYING  THE  SCENERY  OF  THE  SOUND 


THE  RETURN 

The  making  and  fitting  of  the  new  bearing  oc- 
cupied just  seventy  hours.  During  this  intermina- 
ble period  we  enjoyed  the  scenery  of  the  sound  and 
grew  acquainted  with  its  diverse  phenomena.  The 
weather,  if  wet,  was  calm,  and  the  surface  of  the 
water  smooth ;  but  every  steamer  that  passed  would 
set  up  a  roll  that  flung  books,  if  not  crockery,  about 
the  saloon.  And  the  procession  of  steamers  in  both 
directions  was  constant  from  five  A.  M.  to  midnight. 
They  came  from  and  went  to  every  part  of  the 
archipelago  and  of  Sweden  and  of  northern  Ger- 
many. We  gradually  understood  that  at  Copen- 
hagen railways  are  a  trifle,  and  the  sea  a  matter  of 
the  highest  importance.  Nearly  all  traffic  is  sea- 
borne. 

We  discovered,  too,  that  the  immediate  shore  of 
the  sound,  and  of  the  yacht-basin  scooped  out  of  it, 
was  a  sort  of  toy  seaside  resort  for  the  city.  Part  of 
the  building  in  which  the  Royal  Danish  Yacht  Club 
is  housed  was  used  as  a  public  restaurant,  with  a  fine 
terrace  that  commanded  the  yacht-club  landing- 
stage  and  all  the  traffic  of  the  sound.  Moreover, 
it  was  a  good  restaurant,  except  that  the  waiters 
seemed  to  be  always  eating  some  titbit  on  the  sly. 

203 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  .THE  VELSA 

Here  we  sat  and  watched  the  business  and  pleasure 
of  the  sound.  The  czar's  yacht  came  to  anchor, 
huge  and  old-fashioned  and  ungraceful,  with  a  blue- 
and-white  standard  large  enough  to  make  a  suit 
of  sails  for  a  schooner — the  biggest  yacht  afloat,  I 
think,  but  not  a  pleasing  object,  though  better  than 
the  antique  ship  of  the  Danish  king.  The  un- 
wieldy ceremoniousness  of  Russian  courts  seemed 
to  surround  this  pompous  vessel,  and  the  solitary 
tragedy  of  imperial  existence  was  made  manifest 
in  her.  Ah,  the  savage  and  hollow  futility  of  sa- 
luting guns!  The  two  English  royal  yachts,  both 
of  which  we  saw  in  the  neighborhood,  were  in  every 
way  strikingly  superior  to  the  Russian. 

Impossible  to  tire  of  the  spectacle  offered  by  that 
restaurant  terrace.  At  night  the  steamers  would 
slip  down  out  of  Copenhagen  one  after  the  other 
to  the  ends  of  the  Baltic,  and  each  was  a  moving 
parterre  of  electricity  on  the  darkness.  And  then 
we  would  walk  along  the  nocturnal  shore  and  find 
it  peopled  with  couples  and  larger  groups,  whose 
bicycles  were  often  stacked  in  groups,  too.  And 
the  little  yachts  in  the  little  yacht-basin  were 
each  an  illuminated  household!  A  woman  would 

204 


THE  RETURN 

emerge  from  a  cabin  and  ask  a  question  of  a  man 
on  the  dark  bank,  and  he  would  flash  a  lantern- 
light  in  her  face  like  a  missile,  and  "Oh!"  she  would 
cry.  And  farther  on  the  great  hulk  which  is  the 
home  of  the  Copenhagen  Amateur  Sailing  Club 
would  be  lit  with  festoons  of  lamps,  and  from  within 
it  would  come  the  sounds  of  song  and  the  laughter 
of  two  sexes.  And  then  we  would  yell,  "Velsa, 
ahoy!"  and  keep  on  yelling  until  all  the  lightly  clad 
couples  were  drawn  out  of  the  chilly  night  like 
moths  by  the  strange  English  signaling.  And  at 
last  the  Velsa  would  wake  up,  and  the  dinghy  would 
detach  itself  from  her  side,  and  we  would  go  aboard. 
But  not  until  two  o'clock  or  so  would  the  hilarity 
and  music  of  the  Amateur  Sailing  Club  cease,  and 
merge  into  a  frantic  whistling  for  taxicabs  from 
the  stand  beyond  the  restaurant. 

Then  a  few  hours'  slumber,  broken  by  night- 
mares of  the  impossibility  of  ever  quitting  Copen- 
hagen, and  we  would  get  up  and  gaze  at  the  sadness 
of  the  dismantled  engine,  and  over  the  water  at  the 
yachts  dozing  and  rocking  in  the  dawn.  And  on 
a  near  yacht,  out  of  the  maw  of  a  forecastle-hatch 
left  open  for  air,  a  half-dressed  sailor  would  appear, 

205 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

and  yawn,  and  stretch  his  arms,  and  then  begin  to 
use  a  bucket  on  the  yacht's  deck.  The  day  was 
born.  A  green  tug  would  hurry  northward,  splash- 
ing; and  the  first  of  the  morning  steamers  would 
arrive  from  some  mystical  distant  island,  a  vessel, 
like  most  of  the  rest,  of  about  six  hundred  tons, 
red  and  black  funnels,  the  captain  looking  down 
at  us  from  the  bridge ;  a  nice  handful  of  passengers, 
including  a  few  young  women  in  bright  hats ;  every- 
thing damp  and  fresh,  and  everybody  expectant 
and  braced  for  Copenhagen.  A  cheerful,  ordinary 
sight!  And  then  our  skipper  would  emerge,  and 
the  cook  with  my  morning  apple  on  a  white  plate. 
And  the  skipper  would  say,  "We  ought  to  be  able 
to  make  a  start  to-day,  sir."  And  on  the  third  day 
we  did  make  a  start,  the  engine  having  been  mi- 
raculously recreated;  and  we  left  Copenhagen, 
hating  it  no  more. 


206 


EARLY  MORN 


PART  IV 

ON  THE  FRENCH  AND  FLEMISH 
COAST 


CHAPTER  XIV 

FOLKESTONE   TO   BOULOGNE 

WE  waited  for  the  weather  a  day  and  a 
night  at  Folkestone,  which,  though  one  of 
the  gateways  of  England,  is  a  poor  and  primitive 
place  to  lie  in.  Most  of  the  time  we  were  on  the 
mud,  and  to  get  up  into  England  we  had  to  climb 
a  craggy  precipice  called  the  quay-wall.  Never- 
theless, the  harbor  (so  styled)  is  picturesque,  and 
in  the  less  respectable  part  of  the  town,  between  the 
big  hotels  and  band-stands  and  the  mail-steamers; 
there  are  agreeable  second-hand  book  shops,  in  one 
of  which  I  bought  an  early  edition  of  Gray's  poems 
bound  in  ancient  vellum. 

The  newspapers  were  very  pessimistic  about  the 
weather,  and  smacks  occasionally  crept  in  for 
shelter,  with  wild  reports  of  what  was  going  on  in 
the  channel.  At  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  how- 
ever, we  started,  adventurous,  for  the  far  coasts  of 
Brittany,  via  Boulogne.  The  channel  was  a  gray 

211 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

and  desolate  sight,  weary  and  uneasy  after  the  gale. 
And  I  also  was  weary  and  uneasy,  for  it  is  impos- 
sible for  a  civilized  person  of  regular  habits  to  arise 
at  four  A.  M.  without  both  physical  and  psychical 
suffering,  and  the  pleasure  derived  from  the  experi- 
ence, though  real,  is  perverse.  The  last  gleams  of 
the  Gris-Nez  and  the  Varne  lights  were  visible 
across  the  heaving  waste,  feebly  illuminating  the 
intense  melancholy  of  the  dawn.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  do  except  steer  and  keep  your  eyes  open, 
because  a  favorable  and  moderate  southwest  wind 
rendered  the  engine  unnecessary.  The  ship,  and 
the  dinghy  after  her,  pitched  and  rolled  over  the 
heavy  swell.  The  skipper  said  naught.  I  said 
naught.  The  lights  expired.  The  dark  gray  of 
the  sea  turned  to  steel.  The  breeze  was  icy.  Vi- 
tality was  at  its  lowest.  Brittany  seemed  exceed- 
ingly remote,  even  unattainable.  Great,  vital 
questions  presented  themselves  to  the  enfeebled 
mind,  cutting  at  the  very  root  of  all  conduct  and  all 
ambitions.  What  was  the  use  of  yachting?  What 
was  the  use  of  anything?  Why  struggle?  Why 
exist?  The  universe  was  too  vast,  and  the  soul 
homeless  therein. 

212 


AN  OFFICIAL  OF  THE  FRENCH  REPUBLIC 


FOLKESTONE  TO  BOULOGNE 

And  then  the  cook,  imperfectly  attired,  came  aft, 
bearing  a  brass  tray,  and  on  the  tray  an  electro-tea- 
pot, sugar-basin,  and  milk- jug,  and  a  white  cup  and 
saucer  with  a  spoon.  Magic  paraphernalia!  Ex- 
quisite and  potent  draft,  far  surpassing  champagne 
drunk  amid  the  bright  glances  of  beauty!  Only 
the  finest  China  tea  is  employed  aboard  the  Velsa. 
I  drank,  and  was  healed;  and  I  gave  also  to  the 
skipper.  Earth  was  transformed.  We  began  to 
talk.  The  wind  freshened.  The  ship,  heeling  over, 
spurted.  It  was  a  grand  life.  We  descried  the 
French  coast.  The  hours  flew.  Before  breakfast- 
time  we  were  becalmed,  in  sunshine,  between  the 
piers  at  Boulogne,  and  had  to  go  in  on  the  engine. 
At  8:15  we  ran  her  on  the  mud,  on  a  rising  tide, 
next  to  a  pilot-boat,  the  Jean  et  Marie,  inhabited 
by  three  jolly  French  sailors.  We  carried  a  warp 
to  the  Quai  Chanzy,  and  another  to  a  buoy,  and 
considered  ourselves  fairly  in  France. 

The  officials  of  the  French  republic  on  the  quay 
had  been  driven  by  the  spectacle  of  our  peculiar 
Dutch  lines  and  rig  to  adopt  strange,  emotional 
attitudes ;  and  as  soon  as  we  were  afloat,  the  French 
republic  came  aboard  in  a  dinghy  manned  by  two 

215 


acolytes.  The  skipper  usually  receives  the  repre- 
sentatives of  foreign  powers,  but  as  the  skipper 
speaks  no  French,  and  as  this  was  the  first  time  I 
had  entered  France  in  this  style,  I  thought  I  would 
be  my  own  ambassador.  I  received  the  French  re- 
public in  my  saloon;  we  were  ravishingly  polite  to 
each  other;  we  murmured  sweet  compliments  to 
each  other.  He  gave  me  a  clean  bill  of  health,  and 
went  off  with  four  francs  and  one  half-penny. 
There  is  no  nation  like  the  French.  A  French 
milliner  will  make  a  hat  out  of  a  piece  of  felt  and 
nothing;  and  a  French  official  will  make  a  diplo- 
matic episode  out  of  nothing  at  all,  putting  into  five 
minutes  of  futility  all  the  Gallic  civilization  of  cen- 
turies. 

Boulogne  Harbor  is  a  very  bustling  spot,  and  as 
its  area  is  narrowly  limited,  and  its  entrance  diffi- 
cult, the  amount  of  signaling  that  goes  on  is  extraor- 
dinary. A  single  ship  will  fill  the  entrance;  hence 
a  flag  flies  to  warn  the  surrounding  seas  when  the 
entrance  is  occupied  or  about  to  be  occupied.  The 
state  of  the  tide  is  also  indicated,  and  the  expert 
can  read  from  hieroglyphics  slung  in  the  air  the 
exact  depth  of  water  at  a  particular  moment  be- 

216 


FOLKESTONE  TO  BOULOGNE 

tween  the  piers.  In  addition,  of  course,  there  is 
the  weather  signaling.  We  had  scarcely  been  in 
port  a  couple  of  hours  before  the  weather  signaling 
shocked  us;  nay,  we  took  it  as  an  affront  to  our- 
selves. The  south  cone  went  up.  We  had  come 
in  at  the  tail-end  of  one  south  gale,  and  now  an- 
other was  predicted!  How  could  small  people  like 
us  hope  to  work  our  way  down  to  Brittany  in  the 
teeth  of  the  gale!  And  I  had  an  appointment  in 
the  harbor  of  Carantec,  a  tiny  village  near  Morlaix, 
in  a  week's  time !  The  thing  was  monstrous.  But 
the  south  cone  was  hoisted,  and  it  remained  hoisted. 
And  the  cone  is  never  displayed  except  for  a  real 
gale, — not  a  yachtsman's  gale,  but  a  sailor's  gale, 
which  is  serious. 

A  tender  went  forth  to  meet  a  Dutch  American 
liner  in  the  roads.  We  followed  her  along  the 
jetty.  At  the  end  of  the  jetty  the  gale  was  already 
blowing;  and  rain-squalls  were  all  round  the  hori- 
zon. Soon  we  were  in  the  midst  of  a  squall  our- 
selves. The  rain  hid  everything  for  a  minute.  It 
cleared.  The  vast  stretch  of  sands  glistened  wet, 
with  the  variegated  bathing-tents,  from  which  even 
then  beautiful  creatures  were  bathing  in  a  shallow 

217 


surf.  Beyond  was  the  casino,  and  all  the  complex 
roofs  of  Boulogne,  and  to  the  north  a  road  climbing 
up  to  the  cliff-top,  and  the  illimitable  dunes  that 
are  a  feature  of  this  part  of  the  country.  Above 
all  floated  thunder-clouds,  white  in  steely  blue. 
The  skipper  did  not  like  those  thunder-clouds;  he 
said  they  were  the  most  dangerous  of  all  clouds, 
"because  anything  might  come  out  of  them."  He 
spoke  as  if  they  already  contained  in  their  bosoms 
every  conceivable  sort  of  weather,  which  they  would 
let  loose  according  to  their  caprice. 

The  rain  resumed  heavily.  The  wind  compelled 
us  to  hold  tight  to  the  rail  of  the  pier.  A  poster 
announced  that  in  the  casino  behind  the  rain,  Sup- 
pe's  "Boccaccio"  was  to  be  performed  that  night, 
and  Massenet's  "Thai's"  the  next  night.  And 
opera  seemed  a  very  artificial  and  unnecessary  form 
of  activity  as  we  stood  out  there  in  the  reality  of 
the  storm.  The  Atlantic  liner  had  now  bid  good-by 
to  the  tender,  and  was  hugely  moving.  She  found 
sea-room,  and  then  turned  with  the  solemnity  of 
her  bigness,  and  headed  straight  into  the  gale,  pitch- 
ing like  a  toy.  The  rain  soon  veiled  her,  and  she 
was  gone.  I  could  not  picture  the  Velsa  in  such  a 

218 


ON  THE  DUNES  NEAR  BOULOGNE 


FOLKESTONE  TO  BOULOGNE 

situation,  at  any  rate  with  the  owner  on  board.  We 
went  back,  rather  pensive,  to  the  Quai  Chanzy. 

The  men  in  the  pilot-boat  alongside  the  Velsa 
were  not  in  the  least  reassuring  as  to  the  chances  of 
the  Velsa  ever  getting  to  Brittany;  but  they  were 
uplifted  because  the  weather  was  too  rough  for  them 
to  go  out.  When  the  cone  is  on  view,  the  pilot- 
service  is  accomplished  by  a  powerful  steam-vessel. 
Our  friends,  in  their  apparently  happy  idleness, 
sculled  forth  in  a  dinghy  about  fifty  yards  from 
where  we  lay,  and  almost  immediately  rejoined  us 
with  three  eels  that  they  had  caught.  I  bought  the 
three  eels  for  two  shillings,  and  the  cook  cooked 
them  perfectly,  and  I  ate  one  of  them  with  ecstasy 
a  few  hours  later;  but  eels  are  excessively  antipa- 
thetic to  the  digestive  organs,  and  may  jaundice 
the  true  bright  color  of  the  world  for  days. 

The  transaction  of  the  eels,  strengthened  our  in- 
timacy with  the  pilot's  crew,  who  imparted  to  us 
many  secrets;  as,  for  example,  that  they  were  the 
selfsame  men  who  act  as  porters  at  the  quay  for  the 
transfer  of  luggage  when  the  cross-channel  steam- 
ers arrive  and  depart.  On  one  day  they  are  the 
pilot's  crew,  and  on  the  next  they  are  porters  to 

221 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

carry  your  handbags  through  the  customs.  This 
was  a  blow  to  me,  because  on  the  innumerable  oc- 
casions when  I  had  employed  those  porters  I  had 
always  regarded  them  as  unfortunate  beings  who 
could  earn  money  only  during  about  an  hour  each 
day,  victims  of  the  unjust  social  system,  etc.,  and 
who  were  therefore  specially  deserving  of  compas- 
sion and  tips.  I  now  divined  that  their  activities 
were  multiple,  and  no  doubt  dovetailed  together 
like  a  Chinese  puzzle,  and  all  reasonably  remunera- 
tive. The  which  was  very  French  and  admir- 
able. Herein  was  a  valuable  lesson  to  me,  and 
a  clear  saving  in  future  of  that  precious  commodity, 
compassion. 

In  a  day  or  two  the  horrid  fact  emerged  that  we 
were  imprisoned  in  Boulogne.  The  south  cone  did 
not  budge.  Neither  could  we.  The  tide  ebbed; 
the  tide  flowed;  we  sank  softly  into  the  mud;  we 
floated  again.  A  sailor  cut  our  warp  because  it 
was  in  his  way,  and  therefore  incurred  our  anger 
and  the  comminations  of  the  harbor-master.  But 
we  were  not  released.  An  aeroplane  meeting  was 
announced,  and  postponed.  We  witnessed  the 

preparations  for  the  ceremonial  opening  of  a  grand 

009 


FOLKESTONE  TO  BOULOGNE 

new  dock.  We  went  to  the  casino  and  listened  to 
Russian  music,  which  in  other  circumstances  would 
have  enchanted  us. 

But  none  of  these  high  matters  could  hold  our 
attention.  Even  when  the  cook  criticized  our  wa- 
ter-colors with  faint  praise,  and  stated  calmly 
that  he,  too,  was  a  water-colorist,  and  brought 
proofs  of  his  genius  out  of  the  forecastle,  even  then 
we  were  not  truly  interested.  We  thirsted  to  de- 
part, and  could  not.  Our  sole  solace  was  to  walk 
round  and  round  the  basin  in  the  rain-squalls,  and 
observe  their  tremendous  vitality,  which,  indeed, 
never  ceased,  day  or  night  save  at  low  water,  when 
most  craft  were  aground. 

At  such  periods  of  tranquillity  the  trucks  of  the 
fishing- smacks  were  nearly  level  with  the  quay,  and 
we  noticed  that  every  masthead  was  elaborately  fin- 
ished with  gilded  sculpture — a  cross,  a  star,  or  a 
small  figure  of  Jesus,  the  Virgin  Mary,  or  an  angel. 
The  names,  too,  of  these  smacks  were  significant: 
Resurrection,  Jesus-Marie,  and  so  on.  The  orna- 
mentation of  the  deck-houses  and  companions  of 
these  vessels  showed  a  great  deal  of  fantasy  and 
brilliant  color,  though  little  taste.  And  the  gen- 

223 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

eral  effect  was  not  only  gay,  but  agreeable,  demon- 
strating, as  it  did,  that  the  boats  were  beloved. 
English  fishing-boats  are  beloved  by  their  owners, 
but  English  affection  does  not  disclose  itself  in  the 
same  way,  if  it  discloses  itself  at  all.  On  the  third 
afternoon  we  assisted  at  the  departure  of  an  im- 
portant boat  for  the  herring  fisheries.  It  had  a 
crew  of  seventeen  men,  all  dressed  in  brown,  young 
and  old,  and  an  enormous  quantity  of  gear.  It 
bore  the  air  of  a  noble  cooperative  enterprise,  and 
went  off  on  the  tide,  disdainfully  passing  the  still- 
hoisted  cone. 

Perhaps  it  was  this  event  that  gave  us  to  think. 
If  a  herring-boat  could  face  the  gale,  why  not  we? 
Our  ship  was  very  seaworthy,  and  the  coast  was  dot- 
ted with  sheltering  ports.  Only  it  was  impossible 
to  go  south,  since  we  could  not  have  made  head- 
way. Then  why  not  boldly  cancel  the  rendezvous 
in  Brittany,  and  run  northward  before  the  gale? 
The  skipper  saluted  the  idea  with  enthusiasm.  He 
spoke  of  Ostend.  He  said  that  if  the  wind  held 
we  could  easily  run  to  Ostend  in  a  day.  He  did 
not  care  for  Ostend,  but  it  would  be  a  change.  I, 
however,  did  care  for  Ostend.  And  so  it  was  de- 

224 


MAKING  A  DIPLOMATIC  EPISODE  OUT  OF  NOTHING  AT  ALL 


FOLKESTONE  TO  BOULOGNE 

cided  that,  unless  the  wind  went  right  round  in  the 
night,  we  would  clear  out  of  Boulogne  at  the  earliest 
tidal  hour  the  next  morning.  The  joy  of  expect- 
ancy filled  the  ship,  and  I  went  into  the  town  to  buy 
some  of  the  beautiful  meat-pies  that  are  offered  in 
its  shops. 


227 


CHAPTER  XV 

TO  BELGIUM 

AT  6  A.  M.  we,  too,  were  passing  disdainfully 
the  still-hoisted  cone.  Rain  descended  in 
sheets,  in  blankets,  and  in  curtains,  and  when  we 
did  not  happen  to  be  in  the  rain,  we  could  see  rain- 
squalls  of  the  most  theatrical  appearance  in  every 
quarter  of  the  horizon.  The  gale  had  somewhat 
moderated,  but  not  the  sea;  the  wind,  behind  us, 
was  against  the  tide,  and  considerably  quarreling 
therewith.  Now  we  were  inclosed  in  walls  of  wa- 
ter, and  now  we  were  balanced  on  the  summit  of 
a  mountain  of  water,  and  had  a  momentary  view 
of  many  leagues  of  tempest.  I  personally  had 
never  been  out  in  such  weather  in  anything  smaller 
than  a  mail-steamer. 

Here  I  must  deal  with  a  distressing  subject, 
which  it  would  be  pleasanter  to  ignore,  but  which 
my  training  in  realism  will  not  allow  me  to  ignore. 
A  certain  shameful  crime  is  often  committed  on 

228 


yachts,  merchantmen,  and  even  men-of-war.  It  is 
notorious  that  Nelson  committed  this  crime  again 
and  again,  and  that  other  admirals  have  copied  his 
iniquity.  Sailors,  and  particularly  amateur  sail- 
ors, would  sooner  be  accused  of  any  wickedness 
rather  than  this.  Charge  them  with  cheating  at 
cards,  ruining  innocent  women,  defrauding  the 
Government,  and  they  will  not  blench;  but  charge 
them  with  this  offense,  and  they  will  blush,  they 
will  recriminate,  and  they  will  lie  disgracefully 
against  all  evidence ;  they  cannot  sit  still  under  the 
mere  suspicion  of  it. 

As  we  slipped  out  of  the  harbor  that  morning 
the  secret  preoccupation  of  the  owner  and  his  friend 
was  that  circumstances  might  tempt  them  to  per- 
petrate the  sin  of  sins.  Well,  I  am  able  to  say 
that  they  withstood  the  awful  temptation ;  but  only 
just!  If  out  of  bravado  they  had  attempted  to 
eat  their  meals  in  the  saloon,  the  crime  would  as- 
suredly have  been  committed,  but  they  had  the  sense 
to  order  the  meals  to  be  served  in  the  cockpit,  in 
the  rain,  in  the  blast,  in  the  cold.  No  matter  the 
conditions!  They  were  saved  from  turpitude,  and 
they  ate  heartily  thrice  during  the  day.  And  pos- 

229 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

sibly  nobody  was  more  astonished  tfian  themselves 
at  their  success  in  virtue.  I  have  known  a  yachts- 
man, an  expert,  a  member  of  an  exceedingly  crack 
club,  suddenly  shift  his  course  shoreward  in  circum- 
stances not  devoid  of  danger. 

"What  are  you  about?"  was  the  affrighted  ques- 
tion. He  replied: 

"I  'm  going  to  beach  her.  If  I  don't,  I  shall  be 
sick,  and  I  won't  be  sick  aboard  this  yacht." 

Such  is  the  astounding  influence  of  convention, 
which  has  transformed  into  a  crime  a  misfortune 
over  which  the  victim  has  no  control  whatever. 
We  did  not  beach  the  Velsa,  nor  were  our  appetites 
impaired.  We  were  lucky,  and  merely  lucky;  and 
yet  we  felt  as  proud  as  though  we  had,  by  our  own 
skill  and  fortitude,  done  something  to  be  proud  of. 
This  is  human  nature. 

As  we  rounded  Cape  Gris-Nez,  amid  one  of  the 
most  majestic  natural  scenes  I  have  ever  witnessed, 
not  a  gale,  but  about  half  of  a  gale,  was  blowing. 
The  wind  continued  to  moderate.  Off  Calais  the 
tide  was  slack,  and  between  Calais  and  Dunkirk 
we  had  it  under  our  feet,  and  were  able  to  dispense 
with  the  engine  and  still  do  six  and  a  half  knots 

230 


A  GLIMPSE  OF  THE  KURSAAL,  OSTEND 


TO  BELGIUM 

an  hour.  Thenceforward  the  weather  grew  calm 
with  extraordinary  rapidity,  while  the  barometer 
continuously  fell.  At  four  o'clock  the  wind  had 
entirely  expired,  and  we  restarted  the  engine,  and 
crawled  past  Westend  and  Nieuport,  resorts  very 
ugly  in  themselves,  but  seemingly  beautiful  from 
the  sea.  By  the  time  we  sighted  the  whiteness  of 
the  kursaal  at  Ostend  the  water  was  as  flat  as  an 
inland  lake.  The  sea  took  on  the  most  delicate 
purple  tints,  and  the  pallor  of  the  architecture  of 
Belgian  hotels  became  ethereal.  While  we  were 
yet  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  harbor-mouth,  flies 
with  stings  wandered  out  from  the  city  to  meet  us. 

We  passed  between  the  pierheads  at  Ostend  at 
6 :40  P.  M.,  and  the  skipper  was  free  to  speak  again. 
When  he  had  done  maneuvering  in  the  basin,  he 
leaned  over  the  engine-hatch  and  said  to  me: 

"I  've  had  a  bit  o'  luck  this  week." 

"With  the  engine?"  I  suggested,  for  the  engine 
had  been  behaving  itself  lately. 

"No,  sir.  My  wife  presented  me  with  a  little 
boy  last  Tuesday.  I  had  the  letter  last  night. 
I  Ve  been  expecting  it."  But  he  had  said  nothing 
to  me  before.  He  blushed,  adding,  "I  should  like 

233 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

you  to  do  me  a  very  great  favor,  sir — give  me  two 
days  off  soon,  so  that  I  can  go  to  the  baptism." 

Strange,  somehow,  that  a  man  should  have  to 
ask  a  favor  to  be  present  at  the  baptism  of  his  own 
son!  The  skipper  now  has  two  sons.  Both,  I  was 
immediately  given  to  understand,  are  destined  for 
the  sea.  He  has  six  brothers-in-law,  and  they  all 
follow  the  sea.  On  a  voyage  he  will  never  willingly 
leave  the  wheel,  even  if  he  is  not  steering.  He  will 
rush  down  to  the  forecastle  for  his  dinner,  swallow 
it  in  two  minutes  and  a  half,  and  rush  back.  I  said 
to  him  once: 

"I  believe  you  must  be  fond  of  this  wheel." 

"I  am,  sir,"  he  said,  and  grinned. 

We  lay  nearly  opposite  the  railway  station,  and 
our  rudder  was  within  a  foot  of  the  street.  Next 
to  us  lay  the  Velsas  sister  (occasion  for  the  his- 
toric remark  that  "the  world  is  very  small"),  a 
yacht  well  known  to  the  skipper,  of  exactly  the  same 
lines  as  the  Velsa,  nearly  the  same  size,  and  built 
within  four  miles  of  her  in  the  same  year!  The 
next  morning,  which  was  a  Sunday,  the  sisters  were 
equally  drenched  in  tremendous  downpours  of  rain, 
but  made  no  complaint  to  each  other.  I  had  the 

234 


TO  BELGIUM 

awning  rigged,  which  enabled  us,  at  any  rate,  to 
keep  the  saloon  skylights  open. 

The  rain  had  no  effect  on  the  traditional  noisi- 
ness of  Ostend.  Like  sundry  other  cities,  Ostend 
has  two  individualities,  two  souls.  All  that  fronts 
the  sea  and  claims  kinship  with  the  kursaal  is 
grandiose,  cosmopolitan,  insincere,  taciturn,  blatant, 
and  sterile.  It  calls  itself  the  finest  sea-prome- 
nade in  Europe,  and  it  may  be,  but  it  is  as  factitious 
as  a  meringue.  All  that  faces  the  docks  and  canals 
is  Belgian,  more  than  Belgian — Flemish,  pictur- 
esque, irregular,  strident,  simple,  unaffected,  and 
swarming  with  children.  Narrow  streets  are  full 
of  little  cafes  that  are  full  of  little  men  and  fat 
women.  All  the  little  streets  are  cobbled,  and 
everything  in  them  produces  the  maximum  quan- 
tity of  sound.  Even  the  postmen  carry  horns,  and 
all  the  dogs  drawing  little  carts  bark  loudly.  Add 
to  this  the  din  of  the  tram-cars  and  the  whistling 
of  railway  engines. 

On  this  Sunday  morning  there  was  a  band  festi- 
val of  some  kind,  upon  which  the  pitiless  rain  had 
no  effect  whatever.  Band  after  band  swung  past 
our  rudder,  blaring  its  uttermost.  We  had  some 

235 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

marketing  to  do,  as  the  cook  declared  that  he  could 
market  neither  in  French  nor  Flemish,  and  we 
waited  impatiently  under  umbrellas  for  the  proces- 
sion of  bands  to  finish.  It  would  not  finish,  and 
we  therefore  had  to  join  it.  All  the  way  up  the 
Rue  de  la  Chapelle  we  could  not  hear  ourselves 
speak  in  the  brazen  uproar;  and  all  the  brass  in- 
struments and  all  the  dark  uniforms  of  the  puffy 
instrumentalists  were  glittering  and  melting  in  the 
rain.  Occasionally  at  the  end  of  the  street,  over 
the  sea,  lightning  feebly  flickered  against  a  dark 
cloud.  At  last  I  could  turn  off  into  a  butcher's 
shop,  where  under  the  eyes  of  a  score  of  shopping 
matrons  I  purchased  a  lovely  piece  of  beef  for  the 
nominal  price  of  three  francs  seventy-five  centimes, 
and  bore  it  off  with  pride  into  the  rain. 

When  we  got  back  to  the  yacht  with  well-bap- 
tized beef  and  vegetables  and  tarts,  we  met  the 
deck-hand,  who  was  going  alone  into  the  interest- 
ing and  romantic  city.  Asked  what  he  was  about, 
he  replied: 

"I  'm  going  to  buy  a  curio,  sir ;  that 's  all."  He 
knew  the  city.  He  had  been  to  Ostend  before  in 
a  cargo-steamer,  and  he  considered  it  neither  in- 

236 


TO  BELGIUM 

teresting  nor  romantic.  He  pointed  over  the  canal 
toward  the  country.  "There  's  a  pretty  walk  over 
there,"  he  said;  "but  there  's  nothing  here,"  point- 
ing to  the  town.  I  had  been  coming  to  Ostend  for 
twenty  years,  and  enjoying  it  like  a  child,  but  the 
deck-hand,  with  one  soft-voiced  sentence,  took  it 
off  the  map. 

In  the  afternoon,  winding  about  among  the 
soaked  cosmopolitanism  of  the  promenade,  I  was 
ready  to  agree  with  him.  Nothing  will  destroy 
fashionable  affectations  more  surely  than  a  wet  Sun- 
day, and  the  promenade  seemed  to  rank  first  in  the 
forlorn  tragedies  of  the  world.  I  returned  yet 
again  to  the  yacht,  and  was  met  by  the  skipper  with 
a  disturbed  face. 

"We  can't  get  any  fresh  water,  sir.  Horse  is  n't 
allowed  to  work  on  Sundays.  Everything 's 
changed  in  Belgium"  The  skipper  was  too  Dutch 
to  be  fond  of  Flanders.  His  mightiest  passion  was 
rising  in  him — the  passion  to  go  somewhere  else. 

"All  right,"  I  said;  "we  '11  manage  with  mineral 
water,  and  then  we  '11  move  on  to  Bruges."  In 
rain  it  is,  after  all,  better  to  be  moving  than  to  be 
standing  still. 

239 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

But  to  leave  Ostend  was  not  easy,  because  the 
railway  bridge  would  not  swing  for  us,  nor  would 
it  yield,  for  over  an  hour,  to  the  song  of  our  siren. 
Further,  the  bridge-man  deeply  insulted  the  skip- 
per. He  said  that  he  was  not  supposed  to  swing 
for  canal-boats. 

"Canal-boat!"  the  skipper  cried.  "By  what  ca- 
nal do  you  think  I  brought  this  ship  across  the 
North  Sea?"  He  was  coldly  sarcastic,  and  his  sar- 
casm forced  the  bridge  open.  We  passed  through, 
set  our  sails,  and  were  presently  heeling  over  and 
washing  a  wave  of  water  up  the  banks  of  the  canal. 
I  steered,  and,  as  we  overtook  an  enormous  barge, 
I  shaved  it  as  close  as  I  could  for  the  fun  of  the 
thing.  Whereupon  the  skipper  became  excited, 
and  said  that  for  a  yacht  to  touch  a  barge  was  fatal, 
because  the  barges  were  no  stronger  than  cigar- 
boxes,  having  sides  only  an  inch  thick,  and  would 
crumble  at  a  touch;  and  the  whole  barge-popula- 
tion of  Belgium  and  Holland,  but  especially  Bel- 
gium, was  in  a  conspiracy  to  extract  damages  out 
of  yachts  on  the  slightest  pretext.  It  seemed  to 
me  that  the  skipper's  alarm  was  exaggerated.  I 
understood  it  a  few  days  later,  when  he  related  to 

240 


TO  BELGIUM 

me  that  he  had  once  quite  innocently  assisted  at 
the  cracking  of  a  cigar-box,  for  which  his  employer 
had  had  to  pay  five  thousand  francs. 

The  barge  which  I  had  failed  to  sink  had  two  in- 
significant square-sails  set,  like  pocket-handker- 
chiefs, but  was  depending  for  most  of  its  motion  on 
a  family  of  children  who  were  harnessed  to  its  tow- 
rope  in  good  order. 

Now  the  barometer  began  to  fall  still  lower,  and 
simultaneously  the  weather  improved  and  bright- 
ened. It  was  a  strange  summer,  was  that  summer ! 
The  wrind  fell,  the  lee-board  ceased  to  hum  pleas- 
antly through  the  water,  and  we  had  to  start  the 
engine,  which  is  much  less  amusing  than  the  sails. 
And  the  towers  of  Bruges  would  not  appear  on 
the  horizon  of  the  monotonous  tree-lined  canal, 
upon  whose  banks  every  little  village  resembles 
every  other  little  village.  We  had  to  invent  some- 
thing to  pass  the  time,  and  we  were  unwise  enough 
to  measure  the  speed  of  the  engine  on  this  smooth 
water  in  this  unusual  calm.  A  speed  trial  is  nearly 
always  an  error  of  tact,  for  the  reason  that  it  shat- 
ters beautiful  illusions.  I  had  the  beautiful  illu- 
sion that  under  favorable  conditions  the  engine 

241 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

would  drive  the  yacht  at  the  rate  of  twelve  kilo- 
meters an  hour.  The  canal-bank  had  small  posts 
at  every  hundred  meters  and  large  posts  at  every 
thousand.  The  first  test  gave  seven  and  a  half  kilo- 
meters an  hour.  It  was  unthinkable.  The  dis- 
tances must  be  wrong.  My  excellent  watch  must 
have  become  capricious.  The  next  test  gave  eight 
kilometers.  The  skipper  administered  a  tonic  to 
the  engine,  and  we  rose  to  nine,  only  to  fall  again 
to  eight.  Allowing  even  that  the  dinghy  took  a 
kilometer  an  hour  off  the  speed,  the  result  of  the 

test   was   very    humiliating.     We    crawled.     We 
scarcely  moved. 

Then,  feeling  the  need  of  exercise,  I  said  I  would 
go  ashore  aria  walk  along  the  bank  against  the  yacht 
until  we  could  see  Bruges.  I  swore  it,  and  I  kept 
the  oath,  not  with  exactitude,  but  to  a  few  hundred 
meters;  and  by  the  time  my  bloodshot  eyes  sighted 
the  memorable  belfry  of  Bruges  in  the  distance,  I 
had  decided  that  the  engine  was  perhaps  a  better 
engine  than  I  had  fancied.  I  returned  on  board, 
and  had  to  seek  my  berth  in  a  collapse.  Neverthe- 
less the  Velsa  bad  been  a  most  pleasing  object  as 
seen  from  the  bank. 

242 


CHAPTER  XVI 

BRUGES 

WE  moored  at  the  Quai  Spinola,  with  one  of 
the  most  picturesque  views  in  Bruges  in 
front  of  us,  an  irresistible  temptation  to  the  water- 
colorist,  even  in  wet  weather.  I  had  originally  vis- 
ited Bruges  about  twenty  years  earlier.  It  was  the 
first  historical  and  consistently  beautiful  city  I  had 
ever  seen,  and  even  now  it  did  not  appear  to  have 
sunk  much  in  my  esteem.  It  is  incomparably  su- 
perior to  Ghent,  which  is  a  far  more  important 
place,  but  in  which  I  have  never  been  fortunate. 
Ghent  is  gloomy,  whereas  Bruges  is  melancholy,  a 
different  and  a  finer  attribute.  I  have  had  terrible, 
devastating  adventures  in  the  restaurants  of  Ghent, 
and  the  one  first-class  monument  there  is 
the  medieval  castle  of  the  counts  of  Flanders,  an 
endless  field  for  sociological  speculation,  but  tran- 
scendently  ugly  and  depressing.  Ghent  is  a  mod- 
ern town  in  an  old  suit  of  clothes,  and  its 

245 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

inhabitants  are  more  formidably  Belgian  than  those 
of  any  other  large  city  of  Flanders.  I  speak  not 
of  the  smaller  industrial  places,  where  Belgianism 
is  ferocious  and  terrible. 

At  Bruges,  water-colors  being  duly  accomplished, 
we  went  straight  to  Notre  Dame,  where  there  was 
just  enough  light  left  for  us  to  gaze  upon  Michel- 
angelo's "Virgin  and  Child,"  a  major  work.  Then 
to  the  streets  and  lesser  canals.  I  found  changes 
in  the  Bruges  of  my  youth.  Kinematographs, 
amid  a  conflagration  of  electricity,  were  to  be  ex- 
pected, for  no  show-city  in  Europe  has  been  able 
to  keep  them  out.  Do  they  not  enliven  and  illu- 
mine the  ground  floors  of  some  of  the  grandest 
renaissance  palaces  in  Florence?  But  there  were 
changes  more  startling  than  the  advent  kinemato- 
graphs.  Incandescent  gas-mantles  had  replaced 
the  ordinary  burners  in  the  street-lamps  of  the  town ! 
In  another  fifty  years  the  corporation  of  Bruges 
will  be  using  electricity. 

Still  more  remarkable,  excursion  motor-boats 
were  running  on  the  canals,  and  at  the  improvised 
landing-stages  were  large  signs  naming  Bruges 
"The  Venice  of  the  North."  I  admit  that  my  feel- 

246 


BRUGES 

ings  were  hurt — not  by  the  motor-boats,  but  by  the 
signs.  Bruges  is  no  more  the  Venice  of  the  North, 
than  Venice  is  the  Bruges  of  the  South. 

We  allowed  the  soft  melancholy  of  Bruges  to 
descend  upon  us  and  penetrate  us,  as  the  motor- 
boats  ceased  to  run  and  the  kinematographs  grew 
more  brilliant  in  the  deepening  night.  We  had  to 
dine,  and  all  the  restaurants  of  the  town  were  open 
to  us.  Impossible  to  keep  away  from  the  Grande 
Place  and  the  belfry,  still  incessantly  chattering 
about  the  time  of  day.  Impossible  not  to  look  with 
an  excusable  sentimentality  at  the  Hotel  du  Panier 
d'Or,  which  in  youth  was  the  prince  of  hotels,  with 
the  fattest  landlord  in  the  world,  and  thousands  of 
mosquitos  ready  among  its  bed-hangings  to  assist 
the  belfry-chimes  in  destroying  sleep.  The  Panier 
d'Or  was  the  only  proper  hotel  for  the  earnest  art- 
loving  tourist  who  could  carry  all  his  luggage  and 
was  firmly  resolved  not  to  spend  more  than  seven 
francs  a  day  at  the  outside.  At  the  Panier  d'Or 
one  was  sure  to  encounter  other  travelers  who  took 
both  art  and  life  seriously. 

No,  we  would  not  dine  at  the  Panier  d'Or,  be- 
cause we  would  not  disturb  our  memories.  We 

247 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

glanced  like  ghosts  of  a  past  epoch  at  its  exterior, 
and  we  slipped  into  the  cafe  restaurant  next  door, 
and  were  served  by  a  postulant  boy  waiter  who  had 
everything  to  learn  about  food  and  human  nature, 
but  who  was  a  nice  boy.  And  after  dinner,  almost 
saturated  with  the  exquisite  melancholy  of  the 
Grande  Place,  we  were  too  enchanted  to  move. 
We  drank  coffee  and  other  things,  and  lingered  un- 
til all  the  white  cloths  were  removed  from  the  tables ; 
and  the  long,  high  room  became  a  cafe  simply.  A 
few  middle-aged  male  habitues  wandered  in  sepa- 
rately,— four  in  all, — and  each  sat  apart  and 
smoked  and  drank  beer.  The  mournfulness  was 
sweet  and  overwhelming.  It  was  like  chloroform. 
The  reflection  that  each  of  these  sad,  aging  men 
had  a  home  and  an  intimite  somewhere  in  the  spa- 
cious, transformed,  shabby  interiors  of  Bruges,  that 
each  was  a  living  soul  with  aspirations  and  regrets, 
this  reflection  was  excruciating  in  its  blend  of  for- 
lornness  and  comedy. 

A  few  more  habitues  entered,  and  then  a  French- 
man and  a  young  Frenchwomen  appeared  on  a  dais 
at  the  back  of  the  cafe  and  opened  a  piano.  They 
were  in  correct  drawing-room  costume,  with  none 

248 


SCENE  IN  GHENT 


BRUGES 

of  the  eccentricities  of  the  cafe-chantant,  and  they 
produced  no  effect  whatever  on  the  faces  or  in  the 
gestures  of  the  habitues.  They  performed.  He 
sang;  she  sang;  he  played;  she  played.  Just  the 
common  songs  and  airs  of  the  Parisian  music-halls, 
vulgar,  but  more  inane  than  vulgar.  The  young 
woman  was  agreeable,  with  the  large,  red  mouth 
which  is  the  index  of  a  comfortable,  generous,  and 
good-natured  disposition.  They  sang  and  played 
a  long  time.  Nobody  budged;  nobody  smiled. 
Certainly  we  did  not ;  in  a  contest  of  phlegm  Eng- 
lishmen can,  it  is  acknowledged,  hold  their  own. 
Most  of  the  habitues  doggedly  read  newspapers, 
but  at  intervals  there  was  a  momentary  dull  ap- 
plause. The  economic  basis  of  the  entertainment 
was  not  apparent  to  us.  The  prices  of  food  and 
drink  were  very  moderate,  and  no  collection  was 
made  by  or  on  behalf  of  the  artists. 

At  length,  when  melancholy  ran  off  us  instead 
of  being  absorbed,  because  we  had  passed  the  satu- 
ration-point, we  rose  and  departed.  Yes,  incan- 
descent-mantles and  motor-boats  were  not  the  only 
changes  in  Bruges.  And  in  the  cafe  adjoining  the 
one  we  had  left  a  troupe  of  girls  in  white  were  per- 

251 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

forming  gaily  to  a  similar  audience  of  habitues. 
We  glimpsed  them  through  the  open  door.  And 
in  front  of  the  kinematograph  a  bell  was  ringing 
loudly  and  continuously  to  invite  habitues,  and  no 
habitues  were  responding.  It  was  all  extremely 
mysterious.  The  chimes  of  the  belfry  flung  their 
strident  tunes  across  the  sky,  and  the  thought  of 
these  and  of  the  habitues  gave  birth  in  us  to  a  sus- 
picion that  perhaps,  after  all,  Bruges  had  not 
changed. 

We  moved  away  out  of  the  Grande  Place  into 
the  maze  of  Bruges  towrard  the  Quai  Spinola,  our 
footsteps  echoing  along  empty  streets  and  squares 
of  large  houses  the  fronts  of  which  showed  dim  and 
lofty  rooms  inhabited  by  the  historical  past  and  also 
no  doubt  by  habitues.  And  after  much  wandering 
I  had  to  admit  that  I  was  lost  in  Bruges,  a  city 
which  I  was  supposed  to  know  like  my  birthplace. 
And  at  the  corner  of  a  street,  beneath  an  incandes- 
cent-mantle, we  had  to  take  out  a  map  and  unfold 
it  and  peer  at  it  just  as  if  we  had  belonged  to  the 
lowest  rank  of  tourists. 

As  we  submitted  ourselves  to  this  humiliation, 
the  carillon  of  the  belfry  suddenly  came  to  us  over 

252 


A  ROCOCO  CHURCH  INTERIOR 


BRUGES 

a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  roofs.  Not  the  clockwork 
chimes  now,  but  the  carillonneur  himself  playing 
on  the  bells,  a  bravura  piece,  delicate  and  brilliant. 
The  effect  was  ravishing,  as  different  from  that  of 
the  clockwork  chimes  as  a  piano  from  a  barrel- 
organ.  All  the  magic  of  Bruges  was  reawakened 
in  its  pristine  force.  Bruges  was  no  more  a  hack- 
neyed rendezvous  for  cheap  trippers  and  amateur 
painters  and  poverty-stricken  English  bourgeois 
and  their  attendant  chaplains.  It  was  the  miracu- 
lous Bruges  of  which  I  had  dreamed  before  I  had 
ever  even  seen  the  place — just  that. 

Having  found  out  where  we  were  in  relation  to 
the  Quai  Spinola,  we  folded  up  the  map  and  went 
forward.  The  carillon  ceased,  and  began  again, 
reaching  us  in  snatches  over  the  roofs  in  the  night 
wind.  We  passed  under  the  shadows  of  rococo 
churches,  the  f  a9ades  and  interiors  of  which  are  alike 
neglected  by  those  who  take  their  pleasures  solely 
according  to  the  instructions  of  guide-books,  and 
finally  we  emerged  out  of  the  maze  upon  a  long 
lake,  pale  bluish-gray  in  the  gloom.  And  this  lake 
was  set  in  a  frame  of  pale  bluish-gray  houses  with 
stepwise  gables,  and  by  high  towers,  and  by  a  ring 

255 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

of  gas-lamps,  all  sleeping  darkly.  And  on  the  lake 
floated  the  Velsa,  like  the  phantom  of  a  ship,  too 
lovely  to  be  real,  and  yet  real.  It  was  the  most 
magical  thing. 

We  could  scarcely  believe  that  there  was  our 
yacht  right  in  the  midst  of  the  town.  This  was  the 
same  vessel  that  only  a  little  earlier  had  rounded 
Cape  Gris-Nez  in  a  storm,  and  suffered  no  damage 
whatever.  Proof  enough  of  the  advantage  of  the 
barge-build,  with  a  light  draft,  and  heavy  lee- 
boards  for  use  with  a  beam  wind  when  close-hauled. 
Some  yachtsmen,  and  expert  yachtsmen,  too,  are 
strongly  against  the  barge.  But  no  ordinary  yacht 
of  the  Velsa  s  size  could  have  scraped  into  that  lake 
by  the  Quai  Spinola  and  provided  us  with  that 
unique  sensation.  The  Velsa  might  have  been  de- 
signed specially  for  the  background  of  Bruges. 
She  fitted  it  with  exquisite  perfection. 

And  the  shaft  of  light  slanting  up  from  her  fore- 
castle hatch  rendered  her  more  domestic  than  the 
very  houses  around,  which  were  without  exception 
dark  and  blind,  and  might  have  been  abandoned. 
We  went  gingerly  aboard  across  the  narrow,  yield- 
ing gangway,  and  before  turning  in  gazed  again 

256 


BRUGES 

at  the  silent  and  still  scene.  Not  easy  to  credit 
that  a  little  way  off  the  kinematograph  was  tintin- 
nabulating  for  custom,  and  a  Parisian  couple  sing- 
ing and  playing,  and  a  troupe  of  white-frocked 
girls  coarsely  dancing. 


257 


PART  V 
EAST  ANGLIAN  ESTUARIES 


CHAPTER  XVII 

EAST   ANGLIA 

AFTER  the  exoticism  of  foreign  parts,  this 
chapter  is  very  English.  But  no  island  could 
be  more  surpassingly  strange,  romantic,  and  baf- 
fling than  this  island.  I  had  a  doubt  about  the 
propriety  of  using  the  phrase  "East  Anglia"  in  the 
title.  I  asked,  therefore,  three  educated  people 
whether  the  northern  part  of  Essex  could  be  termed 
East  Anglia,  according  to  current  usage.  One 
said  he  did  n't  know.  The  next  said  that  East 
Anglia  began  only  north  of  the  Stour.  The  third 
said  that  East  Anglia  extended  southward  as  far 
as  anybody  considered  that  it  ought  to  extend 
southward.  He  was  a  true  Englishman.  I  agreed 
with  him.  England  was  not  made,  but  born.  It 
has  grown  up  to  a  certain  extent,  and  its  pleasure 
is  to  be  full  of  anomalies,  like  a  human  being.  It 
has  to  be  seen  to  be  believed. 

Thus,  my  income  tax  is  assessed  in  one  town, 

261 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

twelve  miles  distant.  After  assessment,  particu- 
lars of  it  are  forwarded  to  another  town  in  another 
county,  and  the  formal  demand  for  payment  is 
made  from  there ;  but  the  actual  payment  has  to  be 
made  in  a  third  town,  about  twenty  miles  from 
either  of  the  other  two.  What  renders  England 
wondrous  is  not  such  phenomena,  but  the  fact  that 
Englishmen  see  nothing  singular  in  such  phenom- 
ena. 

East  Anglia,  including  North  Essex,  is  as  Eng- 
lish as  any  part  of  England,  and  more  English 
than  most.  Angles  took  possession  of  it  very  early 
in  history,  and  many  of  their  descendants,  full  of 
the  original  Anglian  ideas,  still  powerfully  exist 
in  the  counties.  And  probably  no  place  is 
more  Anglian  than  Brightlingsea,  the  principal 
yachting  center  on  the  east  coast,  and  the  home 
port  of  the  Velsa.  Theoretically  and  officially, 
Harwich  is  the  home  port  of  the  Velsa,  but  not  in 
practice:  we  are  in  England,  and  it  would  never 
do  for  the  theory  to  accord  with  the  fact.  Bright- 
lingsea is  not  pronounced  Brightlingsea,  except  at 
railway  stations,  but  Brigglesea  or  Bricklesea. 
There  is  some  excuse  for  this  uncertainty,  as  Dr. 

262 


A  FISH  RESTAURANT  BOAT 


EAST  ANGLIA 

Edward  Percival  Dickin,  the  historian  of  the  town, 
has  found  193  different  spellings  of  the  name. 

Brightlingsea  is  proud  of  itself,  because  it  was  "a 
member  of  the  Cinque  Ports."  Not  one  of  the 
Cinque  Ports,  of  which  characteristically  there  were 
seven,  but  a  member.  A  "member"  was  subordi- 
nate, and  Brightlingsea  was  subordinate  to  Sand- 
wich, Heaven  knows  why.  But  it  shared  in  the 
responsibilities  of  the  Cinque.  It  helped  to  pro- 
vide fifty-seven  ships  for  the  king's  service  every 
year.  In  return  it  shared  in  the  privilege  of  carry- 
ing a  canopy  over  the  king  at  the  coronation,  and 
in  a  few  useful  exemptions.  After  it  had  been  a 
member  of  the  Cinque  for  many  decades  and  per- 
haps even  centuries,  it  began  to  doubt  whether,  after 
all,  it  was  a  member,  and  demanded  a  charter  in 
proof.  This  was  in  1442.  The  charter  was 
granted,  and  it  leads  off  with  these  words:  "To 
all  the  faithful  in  Christ,  to  whom  these  present 
letters  shall  come,  the  Mayors  and  Bailiffs  of  the 
Cinque  Ports,  Greeting  in  the  Lord  Everlasting." 
By  this  time  ships  had  already  grown  rather  large. 
They  carried  four  masts,  of  which  the  aftermost 
went  by  the  magnificent  title  of  the  "bonaventure 

265 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

mizen";  in  addition  they  had  a  mast  with  a  square 
sail  at  the  extremity  of  the  bow-sprit.  They  also 
carried  an  astrolabe,  for  the  purposes  of  naviga- 
tion. 

Later,  smuggling  was  an  important  industry  at 
Brightlingsea,  and  to  suppress  it  laws  were  passed 
making  it  illegal  to  construct  fast  rowing-  or  sail- 
ing-boats. In  the  same  English,  and  human,  way, 
it  was  suggested  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  that  since  fast  motor-cars  kicked  up  dust 
on  the  roads,  the  construction  of  motor-cars  capable 
of  traveling  fast  should  be  made  illegal.  There 
are  no  four-masted  ships  now  at  Brightlingsea;  no 
bowsprit  carries  a  mast ;  no  ship  puts  to  sea  with  an 
astrolabe;  the  "bonaventure  mizen"  is  no  more; 
smuggling  is  unfashionable;  fast  craft  are  encour- 
aged. 

Nevertheless,  on  a  summer's  morning  I  have  left 
the  Velsa  in  the  dinghy  and  rowed  up  the  St.  Osylh 
Creek  out  of  Brightlingsea,  and  in  ten  minutes  have 
been  lost  all  alone  between  slimy  mud  banks  with  a 
border  of  pale  grass  at  the  top,  and  the  gray  Eng- 
lish sky  overhead,  and  the  whole  visible  world  was 
exactly  as  it  must  have  been  when  the  original 

26G 


EAST  ANGLIA 

Angles  first  rowed  up  that  creek.  At  low  water 
the  entire  Christian  era  is  reduced  to  nothing,  in 
many  a  creek  of  the  Colne,  the  Blackwater,  and  the 
Stour;  England  is  not  inhabited;  naught  has  been 
done ;  the  pristine  reigns  as  perfectly  as  in  the  Afri- 
can jungle.  And  the  charm  of  the  scene  is  inde- 
scribable. But  to  appreciate  it  one  must  know 
what  to  look  for.  I  was  telling  an  Essex  friend 
of  mine  about  the  dreadful  flatness  of  Schleswig- 
Holstein.  He  protested.  "But  are  n't  you  edu- 
cated up  to  flats?"  he  asked.  I  said  I  was.  He 
persisted.  "But  are  you  educated  up  to  mud,  the 
lovely  colors  on  a  mud-flat?"  He  was  a  true  con- 
noisseur of  Essex.  The  man  who  is  incapable  of 
being  ravished  by  a  thin,  shallow  tidal  stream  run- 
ning between  two  wide,  shimmering  mud  banks  that 
curve  through  a  strictly  horizontal  marsh,  without  a 
tree,  without  a  shrub,  without  a  bird,  save  an  ec- 
centric sea-gull,  ought  not  to  go  yachting  in  Essex 
estuaries. 

Brightlingsea  is  one  of  the  great  centers  of  oys- 
ter-fishing, and  it  catches  more  sprats  than  any 
other  port  in  the  island,  namely,  about  fifteen  hun- 
dred tons  of  them  per  annum.  But  its  most  spec- 

267 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

tacular  industry  has  to  do  with  yachting.  It  began 
to  be  a  yachting  resort  only  yesterday;  that  is  to 
say,  a  mere  seventy-five  years  ago.  It  has,  how- 
ever, steadily  progressed,  until  now,  despite  every 
natural  disadvantage  and  every  negligence,  it  can 
count  a  hundred  and  twenty  yachts  and  some  eight 
hundred  men  employed  therewith.  A  yacht  can- 
not get  into  Brightlingsea  at  all  from  the  high  sea 
without  feeling  her  way  among  sand-banks, — in  old 
days  before  bell-buoys  and  gas-buoys,  the  inhab- 
itants made  a  profitable  specialty  of  salving  wrecks, 
— and  when  a  yacht  has  successfully  come  down 
Brightlingsea  Reach,  which  is  really  the  estuary  of 
the  River  Colne,  and  has  arrived  at  the  mouth  of 
Brightlingsea  Creek,  her  difficulties  will  multiply. 
In  the  first  place,  she  will  always  discover  that 
the  mouth  of  the  creek  is  obstructed  by  barges  at 
anchor.  She  may  easily  run  aground  at  the  mouth, 
and  when  she  is  in  the  creek,  she  may,  and  probably 
will,  mistake  the  channel,  and  pile  herself  up  on  a 
bank  known  as  the  Cinders,  or  the  Cindery.  Far- 
ther in,  she  may  fail  to  understand  that  at  one  spot 
there  is  no  sufficiency  of  water  except  at  about  a 
yard  and  a  half  from  the  shore,  which  has  the  ap- 

268 


EAST  ANGLIA 

pearance  of  being  flat.  Escaping  all  these  perils, 
she  will  almost  certainly  run  into  something,  or 
something  will  run  into  her,  or  she  may  entangle 
herself  in  the  oyster  preserves.  Yachts,  barges, 
smacks,  and  floating  objects  without  a  name  are 
anchored  anywhere  and  anyhow.  There  is  no  or- 
der, and  no  rule,  except  that  a  smack  always  deems 
a  yacht  to  be  a  lawful  target.  The  yacht  drops 
her  anchor  somewhere,  and  asks  for  the  harbor- 
master. No  harbor-master  exists  or  ever  has  ex- 
isted or  ever  will.  Historical  tradition — sacred! 
All  craft  do  as  they  like,  and  the  craft  with  the 
thinnest  sides  must  look  to  its  sides. 

Also,  the  creek  has  no  charm  whatever  of  land- 
scape or  seascape.  You  can  see  nothing  from  it 
except  the  little  red  streets  of  Brightlingsea  and 
the  yacht-yards.  Nevertheless,  by  virtue  of  some 
secret  which  is  uncomprehended  beyond  England, 
it  prospers  as  a  center  of  yachting.  Yachts  go  to 
it  and  live  in  it  not  by  accident  or  compulsion,  but 
from  choice.  Yachts  seem  to  like  it.  Of  course 
it  is  a  wonderful  place,  because  any  place  where  a 
hundred  and  twenty  yachts  foregather  must  be  a 
wonderful  place.  The  interest  of  its  creek  is  inex- 

269 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

haustible,  once  you  can  reconcile  yourself  to  its 
primitive  Anglianism,  which,  after  all,  really  har- 
monizes rather  well  with  the  mud-flats  of  the 
county. 

An  advantage  of  Brightlingsea  is  that  when  the 
weather  eastward  is  dangerously  formidable,  you 
can  turn  your  back  on  the  North  Sea  and  go  for 
an  exciting  cruise  up  the  Colne.  A  cruise  up  the 
Colne  is  always  exciting  because  you  never  know 
when  you  may  be  able  to  return.  Even  the  Velsa, 
which  can  float  on  puddles,  has  gone  aground  in 
the  middle  of  the  fair  and  wide  Colne.  A  few  miles 
up  are  the  twin  villages  of  Wivenhoe  and  Row- 
hedge,  facing  each  other  across  the  river,  both  in- 
ordinately picturesque,  and  both  given  up  to  the 
industry  of  yachting.  At  Wivenhoe  large  yachts 
and  even  ships  are  built,  and  in  winter  there  is  al- 
ways a  choice  selection  of  world-famous  yachts  on 
the  mud,  costly  and  huge  gewgaws,  with  their  brass 
stripped  off  them,  painfully  forlorn,  stranded  in  a 
purgatory  between  the  paradise  of  last  summer  and 
the  paradise  of  the  summer  to  come. 

If  you  are  adventurous,  you  keep  on  winding 
along  the  curved  reaches,  and  as  soon  as  the  last 

270 


EAST  ANGLIA 

yacht  is  out  of  sight,  you  are  thrown  back  once 
more  into  the  pre-Norman  era,  and  there  is  nothing 
but  a  thin,  shallow  stream,  two  wide  mud  banks, 
and  a  border  of  grass  at  the  top  of  them.  This  is 
your  world,  which  you  share  with  a  sea-gull  or  a 
crow  for  several  miles;  and  then  suddenly  you  ar- 
rive at  a  concourse  of  great  barges  against  a  quay, 
and  you  wonder  by  what  magic  they  got  there,  and 
above  the  quay  rise  the  towers  and  steeples  of  a  city 
that  was  already  ancient  when  William  the  Con- 
queror came  to  England  in  the  interests  of  civili- 
zation to  take  up  the  white  man's  burden, — Col- 
chester, where  more  oysters  are  eaten  on  a  certain 
night  of  the  year  at  a  single  feast  than  at  any  other 
feast  on  earth.  Such  is  the  boast. 

But  such  contrasts  as  the  foregoing  do  not  com- 
pare in  violence  with  the  contrasts  offered  by  the 
River  Stour,  a  few  miles  farther  north  on  the  map 
of  England.  Harwich  is  on  the  Stour,  at  its 
mouth,  where,  in  confluence  with  the  River  Orwell 
(which  truly  is  in  East  Anglia)  it  forms  a  goodish 
small  harbor.  And  Harwich,  though  a  tiny  town, 
is  a  fairly  important  naval  port,  and  also  "a  gate 
of  the  empire,"  wkere  steamers  go  forth  for  Bel- 

271 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

gium,  Holland,  Denmark,  Germany,  and  Sweden. 
We  came  into  Harwich  Harbor  on  the  tide  one 
magnificent  Sunday  afternoon,  with  the  sea  a 
bright  green  and  the  sky  a  dangerous  purple,  and 
the  entrance  to  the  Stour  was  guarded  by  two  huge 
battle-ships,  the  Blake  and  the  Blenheim,  each  ap- 
parently larger  than  the  whole  of  the  town  of  Har- 
wich. Up  the  Stour,  in  addition  to  all  the  Conti- 
nental steamers,  was  moored  a  fleet  of  forty  or  fifty 
men-of-war,  of  all  sorts  and  sizes,  in  a  quadruple 
line.  It  was  necessary  for  the  Velsa  to  review  this 
fleet  of  astoundingly  ugly  and  smart  black  mon- 
sters, and  she  did  so,  to  the  high  satisfaction  of  the 
fleet,  which  in  the  exasperating  tedium  of  Sunday 
afternoon  was  thirsting  for  a  distraction,  even  the 
mildest.  On  every  sinister  ship — the  Basilisk,  the 
Harpy,  etc.,  apposite  names! — the  young  blue- 
jackets (they  seemed  nearly  all  to  be  youths)  were 
trying  bravely  to  amuse  themselves.  The  sound 
of  the  jews'-harp  and  of  the  concertina  was  heard, 
and  melancholy  songs  of  love.  Little  circles  of 
men  squatted  here  and  there  on  the  machinery-en- 
cumbered decks  playing  at  some  game.  A  few 
students  were  reading;  some  athletes  were  spar- 

272 


BRIGHTLINGSEA  CREEK 


ring ;  many  others  skylarking.  None  was  too  busy 
to  stare  at  our  strange  lines.  Launches  and  long- 
boats were  flitting  about  full  of  young  men,  going 
on  leave  to  the  ecstatic  shore  joys  of  Harwich  or 
sadly  returning  therefrom.  Every  sound  and 
noise  was  clearly  distinguishable  in  the  stillness  of 
the  hot  afternoon.  And  the  impression  given  by 
the  fleet  as  a  whole  was  that  of  a  vast  masculine 
town,  for  not  a  woman  could  be  descried  anywhere. 
It  was  striking  and  mournful.  When  we  had  got 
to  the  end  of  the  fleet  I  had  a  wild  idea : 

"Let  us  go  up  the  Stour." 

At  half -flood  it  looked  a  noble  stream  at  least 
half  a  mile  wide,  and  pointing  west  in  an  almost 
perfect  straight  line.  Nobody  on  board  ever  had 
been  up  the  Stour  or  knew  anybody  who  had.  The 
skipper  said  it  was  a  ticklish  stream,  but  he  was 
always  ready  for  an  escapade.  We  proceeded. 
Not  a  keel  of  any  kind  was  ahead.  And  in  a  mo- 
ment, as  it  seemed,  we  had  quitted  civilization  and 
the  latest  machinery  and  mankind,  and  were  back 
in  the  Anglian  period.  River  marshes,  and  dis- 
tant wooded  hills,  that  was  all;  not  even  a  tilled 
field  in  sight!  The  river  showed  small  headlands, 

275 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

and  bights  of  primeval  mud.  Some  indifferent 
buoys  indicated  that  a  channel  existed,  but  whether 
they  were  starboard  or  port  buoys  nobody  could 
tell.  We  guessed,  and  took  no  harm.  But  soon 
there  were  no  buoys,  and  we  slowed  down  the  en- 
gine in  apprehension,  for  on  the  wide,  deceptive 
waste  of  smooth  water  were  signs  of  shallows.  We 
dared  not  put  about,  we  dared  not  go  ahead. 
Astern,  on  the  horizon,  was  the  distant  fleet,  in  an- 
other world.  Ahead,  on  the  horizon,  was  a  hint  of 
the  forgotten  town  of  Mistley.  Then  suddenly  a 
rowboat  approached  mysteriously  out  of  one  of 
those  bights,  and  it  was  manned  by  two  men  with 
the  air  of  conspirators. 

"D'ye  want  a  pilot?" 

We  hardened  ourselves. 

"No." 

They  rowed  round  us,  critically  staring,  and  re- 
ceded. 

"Why  in  thunder  is  n't  this  river  buoyed?"  I  de- 
manded of  the  skipper. 

The  skipper  answered  that  the  intention  obvi- 
ously was  to  avoid  taking  the  bread  out  of  the 
mouths  of  local  pilots.  He  put  on  speed.  No  ca- 

276 


EAST  ANGLIA 

tastrophe.  The  town  of  Mistley  approached  us. 
Then  we  had  to  pause  again,  reversing  the  propel- 
ler. We  were  in  a  network  of  shallows.  Far  to 
port  could  be  seen  a  small  red  buoy;  it  was  almost 
on  the  bank.  Impossible  that  it  could  indicate  the 
true  channel.  We  went  straight  ahead  and 
chanced  it.  The  next  instant  we  were  hard  on  the 
mud  in  midstream,  and  the  propeller  was  making 
a  terrific  pother  astern.  We  could  only  wait  for 
the  tide  to  float  us  off.  The  rowboat  appeared 
again. 

"D'ye  want  a  pilot?" 

"No." 

And  it  disappeared. 

When  we  floated,  the  skipper  said  to  me  in  a  pe- 
culiar challenging  tone: 

"Shall  we  go  on,  sir,  or  shall  we  return?" 

"We  '11  go  on,"  I  said.     I  could  say  no  less. 

We  bore  away  inshore  to  the  red  buoy,  and,  sure 
enough,  the  true  channel  was  there,  right  under  the 
south  bank.  And  we  came  safely  to  the  town  of 
Mistley,  which  had  never  in  its  existence  seen  even 
a  torpedo-boat  and  seldom  indeed  a  yacht,  certainly 
never  a  Velsa.  And  yet  the  smoke  of  the  harbor 

277 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

of  Harwich  was  plainly  visible  from  its  antique 
quay.  The  town  of  Mistley  rose  from  its  secular 
slumber  to  enjoy  a  unique  sensation  that  after- 
noon. 

"Shall  we  go  on  to  Manningtree,  sir?"  said  the 
skipper,  adding  with  a  grin,  "There  's  only  about 
half  an  hour  left  of  the  flood,  and  if  we  get  aground 
again — " 

It  was  another  challenge. 

"Yes,"  I  said. 

Manningtree  is  a  town  even  more  recondite  than 
Mistley,  and  it  marks  the  very  end  of  the  navigable 
waters  of  the  Stour.  It  lay  hidden  round  the  next 
corner.  We  thought  we  could  detect  the  channel, 
curving  out  again  now  into  midstream.  We  fol- 
lowed the  lure,  opened  out  Manningtree  the  de- 
sired— and  went  on  the  mud  with  a  most  percepti- 
ble bump.  Out,  quick,  with  the  dinghy!  Cover 
her  stern-sheets  with  a  protecting  cloth,  and  lower 
an  anchor  therein  and  about  fifty  fathoms  of  chain, 
and  row  away!  We  manned  the  windlass,  and 
dragged  the  Velsa  off  the  mud. 

"Shall  we  go  on,  sir?" 

"No,"  I  said,  not  a  hero.  "We  '11  give  up  Man- 

278 


EAST  ANGLIA 

ningtree  this  trip."  Obstinacy  in  adventure  might 
have  meant  twelve  hours  in  the  mud.  The  crew 
breathed  relief.  We  returned,  with  great  care,  to 
civilization.  We  knew  now  why  the  Stour  is  a  des- 
olate stream.  Thus  to  this  day  I  have  never 
reached  Manningtree  except  in  an  automobile. 

And  there  are  still  stranger  waters  than  the 
Stour;  for  example,  Hamford  Water,  where  ex- 
plosives are  manufactured  on  lonely  marshes, 
where  immemorial  wharves  decay,  and  wild  ducks 
and  owls  intermingle,  and  public-houses  with  no 
public  linger  on  from  century  to  century,  and 
where  the  saltings  are  greener  than  anywhere  else 
on  the  coast,  and  the  east  wind  more  east,  and  the 
mud  more  vivid.  And  the  Velsa  has  been  there, 
too. 


279 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

IN   SUFFOLK 

THE  Orwell  is  reputed  to  have  the  finest  estu- 
ary in  East  Anglia.  It  is  a  broad  stream, 
and  immediately  Shotley  Barracks  and  the  engines 
of  destruction  have  been  left  behind,  it  begins  to  be 
humane  and  reassuring.  Thanks  to  the  surprising 
modernity  of  the  town  of  Ipswich,  which  has  dis- 
covered that  there  are  interests  more  important 
than  those  of  local  pilots,  it  is  thoroughly  well 
buoyed,  so  that  the  stranger  and  the  amateur  can- 
not fail  to  keep  in  the  channel.  It  insinuates  itself 
into  Suffolk  in  soft  and  civilized  curves,  and  dis- 
plays no  wildness  of  any  kind  and,  except  at  one 
point,  very  little  mud.  When  you  are  navigating 
the  Orwell,  you  know  positively  that  you  are  in 
England.  On  each  side  of  you  modest  but  grace- 
fully wooded  hills  slope  down  with  caution  to  the 
bank,  and  you  have  glimpses  of  magnificent  man- 

280 


IN  SUFFOLK 

sions  set  in  the  midst  of  vast,  undulating  parks, 
crisscrossed  with  perfectly  graveled  paths  that 
gleam  in  the  sunshine.  Everything  here  is  private 
and  sacred,  and  at  the  gates  of  the  park  lodge- 
keepers  guard  not  only  the  paradisiacal  acres,  but 
the  original  ideas  that  brought  the  estate  into  ex- 
istence. 

Feudalism,  benevolent  and  obstinate,  flourishes 
with  calm  confidence  in  itself;  and  even  on  your 
yacht's  deck  you  can  feel  it,  and  you  are  awed. 
For  feudalism  has  been,  and  still  is,  a  marvelous 
cohesive  force.  And  it  is  a  solemn  thought  that 
within  a  mile  of  you  may  be  a  hushed  drawing- 
room  at  whose  doors  the  notion  of  democracy  has 
been  knocking  quite  in  vain  for  a  hundred  years. 
Presently  you  will  hear  the  sweet  and  solemn 
chimes  of  a  tower-clock,  sound  which  seems  to 
spread  peace  and  somnolence  over  half  a  county. 
And  as  you  listen,  you  cannot  but  be  convinced 
that  the  feudal  world  is  august  and  beautiful,  and 
that  it  cannot  be  improved,  and  that  to  overthrow 
it  would  be  a  vandalism.  That  is  the  estuary  of 
the  Orwell  and  its  influence.  Your  pleasure  in  it 
will  be  unalloyed  unless  you  are  so  ill-advised  as  to 

281 


pull  off  in  the  dinghy,  and  try  to  land  in  one  of 
the  lovely  demesnes. 

About  half-way  up  the  estuary,  just  after  pass- 
ing several  big  three-masters  moored  in  midstream 
and  unloading  into  lighters,  you  come  to  Pinmill, 
renowned  among  yachtsmen  and  among  painters. 
Its  haven  is  formed  out  of  the  angle  of  a  bend  in 
the  river,  and  the  narrowness  of  the  channel  at  this 
point  brings  all  the  traffic  spectacularly  close  to  the 
yachts  at  anchor.  Here  are  all  manner  of  yachts, 
and  you  are  fairly  certain  to  see  a  friend,  and  pay 
or  receive  a  visit  of  state.  And  also  very  probably, 
if  you  are  on  board  the  Velsa,  some  painter  on  an- 
other yacht  will  feel  bound  to  put  your  strange 
craft  into  a  sketch.  And  the  skipper,  who  has  lit- 
tle partiality  for  these  river  scenes,  will  take  the 
opportunity  to  go  somewhere  else  on  a  bicycle. 
You,  too,  must  go  ashore,  because  Pinmill  is  an 
exhibition-village,  entirely  picturesque,  paintable, 
and  English.  It  is  liable  to  send  the  foreigner  into 
raptures,  and  Americans  have  been  known  to  as- 
sert that  they  could  exist  there  in  happiness  forever 
and  ever. 

I  believe  that  some  person  or  persons  in  author- 

282 


THE  DOCK.  IPSWICH 


IX  SUFFOLK 

ity  offer  prizes  to  the  peasantry  for  the  prettiest 
cottage  gardens  in  Pinmill.  It  is  well;  but  I 
should  like  to  see  in  every  picturesque  and  paint- 
able  English  village  a  placard  stating  the  number 
of  happy  peasants  who  sleep  more  than  three  in  a 
room,  and  the  number  of  adult  able-bodied  males 
who  earn  less  than  threepence  an  hour.  All  as- 
pects of  the  admirable  feudal  system  ought  to  be 
made  equally  apparent.  The  chimes  of  the  castle- 
clock  speak  loud,  and  need  no  advertisement;  cot- 
tage gardens  also  insist  on  the  traveler's  attention, 
but  certain  other  phenomena  are  apt  to  escape  it. 

The  charm  of  Pinmill  is  such  that  you  usually 
decide  to  remain  there  over  night.  In  one  respect 
this  is  a  mistake,  for  the  company  of  yachts  is  such 
that  your  early  morning  Swedish  exercises  on  deck 
attract  an  audience,  which  produces  self -conscious- 
ness in  the  exerciser. 

Ipswich  closes  the  estuary  of  the  Orwell,  and 
Ipswich  is  a  genuine  town  that  combines  industrial- 
ism with  the  historic  sense.  No  American  can  af- 
ford not  to  visit  it,  because  its  chief  hotel  has  a  no- 
torious connection  with  Mr.  Pickwick,  and  was 
reproduced  entire  and  life-size  at  a  world's  fair  in 

285 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

the  United  States.  Aware  of  this  important  fact, 
the  second-hand  furniture  and  curio-dealers  of  the 
town  have  adopted  suitable  measures.  When  they 
have  finished  collecting,  Americans  should  go  to 
the  docks — as  interesting  as  anything  in  Ipswich — 
and  see  the  old  custom-house,  with  its  a'rch,  and  the 
gloriously  romantic  French  and  Scandinavian 
three-masters  that  usually  lie  for  long  weeks  in  the 
principal  basin.  Times  change.  Less  than  eighty 
years  ago  the  docks  of  Ipswich  were  larger  than 
those  of  London.  And  there  are  men  alive  and 
fighting  in  Ipswich  to-day  who  are  determined  that 
as  a  port  Ipswich  shall  resume  something  of  her 
ancient  position  in  the  world. 

Just  around  the  corner  from  the  Orwell  estuary, 
northward,  is  the  estuary  of  the  River  Deben.  One 
evening,  feeling  the  need  of  a  little  ocean  air  after 
the  close  feudalism  of  the  Orwell,  we  ran  down 
therefrom  to  the  North  Sea,  and  finding  ourselves 
off  Woodbridgehaven,  which  is  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Deben,  with  a  flood-tide  under  us,  we  determined 
to  risk  the  entrance.  According  to  all  printed  ad- 
vice, the  entrance  ought  not  to  be  risked  without 
local  aid.  There  is  a  bank  at  the  mouth,  with  a 

286 


IN  SUFFOLK 

patch  that  dries  at  low  water,  and  within  there  is 
another  bank.  The  shoals  shift  pretty  frequently, 
and,  worst  of  all,  the  tide  runs  at  the  rate  of  six 
knots  and  more.  Still,  the  weather  was  calm,  and 
the  flood  only  two  hours  old.  We  followed  the 
sailing  directions,  and  got  in  without  trouble  just 
as  night  fell.  The  rip  of  the  tide  was  very 
marked,  and  the  coast-guard  who  boarded  us  with 
a  coast-guard's  usual  curiosity  looked  at  us  as 
though  we  were  either  heroes  or  rash  fools,  proba- 
bly the  latter. 

We  dropped  anchor  for  the  night,  and  the  next 
morning  explored  the  estuary,  with  the  tide  rising. 
We  soon  decided  that  the  perils  of  this  famous 
river  had  been  exaggerated.  There  were  plenty 
of  beacons, — which,  by  the  way,  are  continually 
being  shifted  as  the  shoals  shift, — and  moreover 
the  channel  defined  itself  quite  simply,  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  rest  of  the  winding  river-bed  was  dry. 
We  arrived  proudly  at  Woodbridge,  drawing  all 
the  maritime  part  of  the  town  to  look  at  us,  and  we 
ourselves  looked  at  Woodbridge  in  a  fitting  man- 
ner, for  it  is  sacred  to  the  memory  not  of  Omar 
Khayyam,  but  to  much  the  same  person,  Edward 

287 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

Fitzgerald,  who  well  knew  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the 
Deben.  Then  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  return, 
as  only  for  about  two  hours  at  each  tide  is  there 
sufficient  water  for  a  yacht  to  lie  at  Woodbridge. 

The  exit  from  the  Deben  was  a  different  affair 
from  the  incoming.  Instead  of  a  clearly  defined 
channel,  we  saw  before  us  a  wide  sea.  The  bea- 
cons or  perches  were  still  poking  up  their  heads,  of 
course,  but  they  were  of  no  use,  since  they  had 
nothing  to  indicate  whether  they  were  starboard 
or  port  beacons.  It  is  such  details  that  harmonize 
well  with  the  Old- World  air  of  English  estuaries 
— with  the  swans,  for  instance,  those  eighteenth- 
century  birds  that  abound  on  the  Deben.  We  had 
to  take  our  choice  of  port  or  starboard.  Heaven 
guided  us.  We  reached  the  entrance.  The  tide 
was  at  half-ebb  and  running  like  a  race;  the 
weather  was  unreliable.  It  was  folly  to  proceed. 
We  proceeded.  We  had  got  in  alone;  we  would 
get  out  alone.  We  shot  past  the  coast-guard,  who 
bawled  after  us.  We  put  the  two  beacons  in  a  line 
astern,  obedient  to  the  sailing  directions;  but  we 
could  not  keep  them  in  a  line.  The  tide  swirled  us 
away,  making  naught  of  the  engine.  We  gave  a 

288 


IX  SUFFOLK 

tremendous  bump.  Yes,  we  were  assuredly  on  the 
bank  for  at  least  ten  hours,  if  not  forever ;  if  it  came 
on  to  blow,  we  might  well  be  wrecked.  But  no. 
The  ancient  Velsa  seemed  to  rebound  elastically  off 
the  traitorous  sand,  and  we  were  afloat  again.  In 
two  minutes  more  we  were  safe.  What  the  coast- 
guard said  is  not  known  to  this  day.  We  felt  se- 
cretly ashamed  of  our  foolishness,  but  we  were  sus- 
tained by  the  satisfaction  of  having  deprived  more 
local  pilots  of  their  fees. 

Still,  we  were  a  sobered  crew,  and  at  the 
next  river-mouth  northward — Orford  Haven — we 
yielded  to  a  base  common  sense,  and  signaled  for  a 
pilot.  The  river  Ore  is  more  dangerous  to  enter, 
and  far  more  peculiar  even  than  the  Deben.  The 
desolate  spot,  where  it  runs  into  the  sea  is  well 
called  Shinglestreet,  for  it  is  a  wilderness  of  shin- 
gles. The  tide  runs  very  fast  indeed ;  the  bar  shifts 
after  every  gale,  and  not  more  than  four  feet  of 
water  is  guaranteed  on  it.  Last  and  worst,  the 
bottom  is  hard.  It  was  probably  the  hardness  of 
the  bottom  that  finally  induced  us  to  stoop  to  a 
pilot.  To  run  aground  on  sand  is  bad,  but  to  run 
aground  on  anything  of  a  rocky  nature  may  be 

289 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

fatal.  Our  signal  was  simply  ignored.  Not  the 
slightest  symptom  anywhere  of  a  pilot.  We  were 
creeping  in,  and  we  continued  to  creep  in.  The 
skipper  sent  the  deck-hand  forward  with  the  pole. 
He  called  out  seven  feet,  eight  feet,  seven  feet;  but 
these  were  Dutch  feet,  of  eleven  inches  each,  be- 
cause the  pole  is  a  Dutch  pole.  The  water  was 
ominous,  full  of  curling  crests  and  unpleasant  hol- 
lows, as  the  wind  fought  the  current.  The  deck- 
hand called  out  seven,  six,  five  and  a  half.  We 
could  almost  feel  the  ship  bump  .  .  .  and  then  we 
were  over  the  bar.  Needless  to  say  that  a  pilot 
immediately  hove  in  sight.  We  waved  him  off, 
though  he  was  an  old  man  with  a  grievance. 

We  approached  the  narrows.  We  had  con- 
quered the  worst  difficulties  by  the  sole  help  of  the 
skipper's  instinct  for  a  channel,  for  the  beacons 
were  incomprehensible  to  us ;  and  we  imagined  that 
we  could  get  through  the  narrows  into  the  river 
proper.  But  we  were  mistaken.  We  had  a  fair 
wind,  and  we  set  all  sails,  and  the  engine  was  work- 
ing well;  but  there  was  more  than  a  six-knot  tide 
rushing  out  through  those  narrows,  and  we  could 
not  get  through.  We  hung  in  them  for  about  half 

290 


IN  SUFFOLK 

an  hour.  Then,  imitating  the  example  of  a  fisher- 
man who  had  followed  us,  we  just  ran  her  nose  into 
the  shingle,  with  the  sails  still  set,  and  jumped 
ashore  with  a  rope.  The  opportunity  to  paint  a 
water-color  of  the  Velsa  under  full  sail  was  not  to 
be  lost.  Also  we  bought  fish  and  we  borrowed 
knowledge  from  the  fisherman.  He  informed  us 
that  we  had  not  entered  by  the  channel  at  all ;  that 
we  were  never  anywhere  near  it.  He  said  that  the 
channel  had  four  feet  at  that  hour.  Thus  we 
learned  that  local  wisdom  is  not  always  omnis- 
cience. 

After  a  delay  of  two  hours,  we  went  up  the  Ore 
on  the  slack.  The  Ore  is  a  very  dull  river,  but  it 
has  the  pleasing  singularity  of  refusing  to  quit  the 
ocean.  For  mile  after  mile  it  runs  exactly  parallel 
with  the  North  Sea,  separated  from  it  only  by  a 
narrow  strip  of  shingle.  Under  another  name  it 
all  but  rejoins  the  ocean  at  Aldeburgh,  where  at 
length  it  curves  inland.  On  its  banks  is  Orford,  a 
town  more  dead  than  any  dead  city  of  the  Zuyder 
Zee,  and  quite  as  picturesque  and  as  full  of  charac- 
ter. The  deadness  of  Orford  may  be  estimated 
from  the  fact  that  it  can  support  a  kinematograph 

291 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

only  three  nights  a  week.  It  has  electric  light,  but 
no  railway,  and  the  chief  attractions  are  the  lofty 
castle,  a  fine  church,  an  antique  quay,  and  a  large 
supply  of  splendid  lobsters.  It  knows  not  the 
tourist,  and  has  the  air  of  a  natural  self -preserving 
museum. 


292 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  INCOMPARABLE   BLACKWATEB 

TIME  was  when  I  agreed  with  the  popular, 
and  the  guide-book,  verdict  that  the  Orwell 
is  the  finest  estuary  in  these  parts;  but  now  that  I 
know  it  better,  I  unhesitatingly  give  the  palm  to 
the  Blackwater.  It  is  a  nobler  stream,  a  true  arm 
of  the  sea;  its  moods  are  more  various,  its  banks 
wilder,  and  its  atmospheric  effects  much  grander. 
The  defect  of  it  is  that  it  does  not  gracefully  curve. 
The  season  for  cruising  on  the  Blackwater  is  Sep- 
tember, when  the  village  regattas  take  place,  and 
the  sunrises  over  leagues  of  marsh  are  made  won- 
derful by  strange  mists. 

Last  September  the  Velsa  came  early  into 
Mersea  Quarters  for  Mersea  Regatta.  The 
Quarters  is  the  name  given  to  the  lake-like  creek 
that  is  sheltered  betwen  the  mainland  and 
Mersea  Island — which  is  an  island  only  dur- 
ing certain  hours  of  the  day.  Crowds  of  small 

295 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

yachts  have  their  home  in  the  Quarters,  and 
the  regatta  is  democratic,  a  concourse  or  medley  of 
craft  ranging  from  sailing  dinghies  up  through 
five-tonners  to  fishing-smacks,  trading-barges  con- 
verted into  barge-yachts,  real  barge-yachts  like 
ourselves,  and  an  elegant  schooner  of  a  hundred 
tons  or  so,  fully  "dressed,"  and  carrying  ladies  in 
bright-colored  jerseys,  to  preside  over  all.  The 
principal  events  occur  in  the  estuary,  but  the  inti- 
mate and  amusing  events,  together  with  all  the 
river  gossip  and  scandal,  are  reserved  for  the  seclu- 
sion of  the  Quarters,  where  a  long  lane  of  boats 
watch  the  silver-gray,  gleaming  sky,  and  wait  for 
the  tide  to  cover  the  illimitable  mud,  and  listen  to 
the  excessively  primitive  band  which  has  stationed 
itself  on  a  barge  in  the  middle  of  the  lane. 

We  managed  to  get  on  the  mud,  but  we  did  that 
on  purpose,  to  save  the  trouble  of  anchoring. 
Many  yachts  and  even  smacks  do  it  not  on  pur- 
pose, and  at  the  wrong  state  of  the  tide,  too.  A 
genuine  yachtsman  paid  us  a  visit — one  of  those 
men  who  live  solely  for  yachting,  who  sail  their 
own  yachts  in  all  weathers,  and  whose  foible  is  to 
dress  like  a  sailor  before  the  mast  or  like  a  long- 

296 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  BLACKWATER 

shore  loafer — and  told  us  a  tale  of  an  amateur  who 
had  bought  a  yacht  that  had  inhabited  Mersea 
Quarters  all  her  life.  When  the  amateur  returned 
from  his  first  cruise  in  her,  he  lost  his  nerve  at  the 
entrance  to  the  Quarters,  and  yelled  to  a  fisherman 
at  anchor  in  a  dinghy,  "Which  is  the  channel?" 
The  fisherman,  seeing  a  yacht  whose  lines  had  been 
familiar  to  him  for  twenty  years,  imagined  that  he 
was  being  made  fun  of.  He  drawled  out,  "You 
know."  In  response  to  appeals  more  and  more  ex- 
cited he  continued  to  drawl  out,  "You  know."  At 
length  the  truth  was  conveyed  to  him,  whereupon 
he  drawlingly  advised:  "Let  the  old  wench  alone. 
Let  her  alone.  She  '11  find  her  way  in  all  right." 

Regattas  like  the  Mersea  are  full  of  tidal  stories, 
because  the  time  has  to  be  passed  somehow  while 
the  water  rises.  There  was  a  tale  of  a  smuggler 
on  the  mud-flats,  pursued  in  the  dead  of  night  by  a 
coast-guardsman.  Suddenly  the  flying  smuggler 
turned  round  to  face  the  coast-guardsman.  "Look 
here,"  said  he  to  the  coast-guardsman  with  warning 
persuasiveness,  "you  'd  better  not  come  any  further. 
You  do  see  such  wonderful  queer  things  in  the 
newspapers  nowadays."  The  coast-guardsman, 

297 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

rapidly  reflecting  upon  the  truth  of  this  dark  say- 
ing, accepted  the  advice,  and  went  home. 

The  mud-flats  have  now  disappeared,  guns  begin 
to  go  off,  and  presently  the  regatta  is  in  full  activ- 
ity. The  estuary  is  dotted  far  and  wide  with  white, 
and  the  din  of  orchestra  and  cheering  and  chatter 
within  the  lane  of  boats  in  the  Quarters  is  terrific. 
In  these  affairs,  at  a  given  moment  in  the  after- 
noon, a  pause  ensues,  when  the  minor  low-comedy 
events  are  finished,  and  before  the  yachts  and 
smacks  competing  in  the  long  races  have  come 
back.  During  this  pause  we  escaped  out  of  the 
Quarters,  and  proceeded  up  the  river,  past  Brad- 
well  Creek,  where  Thames  barges  lie,  and  past 
Tollesbury,  with  its  long  pier,  while  the  high  tide 
was  still  slack.  We  could  not  reach  Maldon, 
which  is  the  Mecca  of  the  Blackwater,  and  we  an- 
chored a  few  miles  below  that  municipal  survival, 
in  the  wildest  part  of  the  river,  and  watched  the 
sun  disappear  over  vast,  flat  expanses  of  water  as 
smooth  as  oil,  with  low  banks  whose  distances  were 
enormously  enhanced  by  the  customary  optical 
delusions  of  English  weather.  Close  to  us  was 
Osea  Island,  where  an  establishment  for  the  ref- 

298 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  BLACKWATER 

ormation  of  drunkards  adds  to  the  weird  scene 
an  artistic  touch  of  the  sinister.  From  the  private 
jetty  of  Osea  Island  two  drunkards  in  process  of 
being  reformed  gazed  at  us  steadily  in  the  deep- 
ening gloom.  Then  an  attendant  came  down  the 
jetty  and  lighted  its  solitary  red  eye,  which  joined 
its  stare  to  that  of  the  inebriates. 

Of  all  the  estuary  towns,  Maldon,  at  the  head 
of  the  Blackwater,  is  the  pearl.  Its  situation  on 
a  hill,  with  a  fine  tidal  lake  in  front  of  it,  is  superb, 
and  the  strange  thing  in  its  history  is  that  it  should 
not  have  been  honored  by  the  brush  of  Turner.  A 
thoroughly  bad  railway  service  has  left  Maldon 
in  the  eighteenth  century  for  the  delight  of 
yachtsmen  who  are  content  to  see  a  town  de- 
cay if  only  the  spectacle  affords  esthetic  pleas- 
ure. 

There  is  a  lock  in  the  river  just  below  Maldon, 
leading  to  the  Chelmsford  Canal.  We  used  this 
lock,  and  found  a  lock-keeper  and  lock-house 
steeped  in  tradition  and  the  spirit  of  history.  Be- 
yond the  lock  was  a  basin  in  which  were  hidden 
two  beautiful  Scandinavian  schooners  discharging 
timber  and  all  the  romance  of  the  North.  The 

301 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  FELSA 

prospect  was  so  alluring  that  we  decided  to  voyage 
on  the  canal,  at  any  rate  as  far  as  the  next  lock, 
and  we  asked  the  lock-keeper  how  far  off  the  next 
lock  was.  He  said  curtly: 

"Ye  can't  go  up  to  the  next  lock.'* 

"Why  not?" 

"Because  there 's  only  two  feet  of  water  in  this 
canal.  There  never  was  any  more." 

We  animadverted  upon  the  absurdity  of  a  com- 
mercial canal,  leading  to  a  county  town,  having 
a  depth  of  only  two  feet. 

He  sharply  defended  his  canal. 

"Well,"  he  ended  caustically,  "it 's  been  going 
on  now  for  a  hundred  or  a  hundred  and  twenty 
year  like  that,  and  I  think  it  may  last  another  day 
or  two." 

We  had  forgotten  that  we  were  within  the  in- 
fluences of  Maldon,  and  we  apologized.  . 

Later — it  was  a  Sunday  of  glorious  weather — 
we  rowed  in  the  dinghy  through  the  tidal  lake  into 
the  town.  The  leisured  population  of  Maldon  was 
afoot  in  the  meadows  skirting  the  lake.  A  few 
boats  were  flitting  about.  The  sole  organized 
amusement  was  public  excursions  in  open  sailing- 

302 


THE  IXCOMP ARABLE  BLACKWATER 

boats.  There  was  a  bathing-establishment,  but  the 
day  being  Sunday  and  the  weather  hot  and  every- 
body anxious  to  bathe,  the  place  was  naturally 
closed.  There  ought  to  have  been  an  open-air  con- 
cert, but  there  was  not.  Upon  this  scene  of  a 
population  endeavoring  not  to  be  bored,  the  ancient 
borough  of  Maldon  looked  grandly  down  from  its 
church-topped  hill. 

Amid  the  waterways  of  the  town  were  spacious 
timber-yards ;  and  eighteenth-century  wharves  with 
wharfinger's  residence  all  complete,  as  in  the  an- 
tique days,  inhabited  still,  but  rotting  to  pieces; 
plenty  of  barges;  and  one  steamer.  We  thought 
of  Sneek,  the  restless  and  indefatigable.  I  have 
not  yet  visited  in  the  Velsa  any  Continental  port 
that  did  not  abound  in  motor-barges,  but  in  all  the 
East  Anglian  estuaries  together  I  have  so  far 
seen  only  one  motor-barge,  and  that  was  at  Har- 
wich. English  bargemen  no  doubt  find  it  more 
dignified  to  lie  in  wait  for  a  wind  than  to  go  puff- 
ing to  and  fro  regardless  of  wind.  Assuredly  a 
Thames  barge — said  to  be  the  largest  craft  in  the 
world  sailed  by  a  man  and  a  boy — in  full  course 
on  the  Blackwater  is  a  noble  vision  full  of  beauty, 

303 


FROM  THE  LOG  OF  THE  VELSA 

but  it  does  not  utter  the  final  word  of  enterprise 
in  transport. 

The  next  morning  at  sunrise  we  dropped  slowly 
down  the  river  in  company  with  a  fleet  of  fishing- 
smacks.  The  misty  dawn  was  incomparable.  The 
distances  seemed  enormous.  The  faintest  south- 
east breeze  stirred  the  atmosphere,  but  not  the  mir- 
ror of  the  water.  All  the  tints  of  the  pearl  were 
mingled  in  the  dreaming  landscape.  No  prospect 
anywhere  that  was  not  flawlessly  beautiful,  en- 
chanted with  expectation  of  the  day.  The  un- 
measured mud-flats  steamed  as  primevally  as  they 
must  have  steamed  two  thousand  years  ago,  and 
herons  stood  sentry  on  them  as  they  must  have 
stood  then.  Incredibly  far  away,  a  flash  of  pure 
glittering  white,  a  sea-gull!  The  whole  picture 
was  ideal. 

At  seven  o'clock  we  had  reached  Goldhanger 
Creek,  beset  with  curving  water-weeds.  And  the 
creek  appeared  to  lead  into  the  very  arcana  of  the 
mist.  We  anchored,  and  I  rowed  to  its  mouth. 
A  boat  sailed  in,  scarcely  moving,  scarcely  rippling 
the  water,  and  it  was  in  charge  of  two  old  white- 
haired  fishermen.  They  greeted  me. 

304 


THE  INCOMPARABLE  BLACKWATER 

"Is  this  creek  long?"  I  asked.  A  pause.  They 
both  gazed  at  the  creek  with  the  beautiful  name, 
into  which  they  were  sailing,  as  though  they  had 
never  seen  it  before. 

"Aye,  it 's  long." 

"How  long  is  it?     Is  it  a  mile?" 

"Aye,  it 's  a  mile." 

"Is  there  anything  up  there?"  Another  pause. 
The  boat  was  drawing  away  from  me. 

"Aye,  there 's  oysters  up  there."  The  boat 
and  the  men  withdrew  imperceptibly  into  the 
silver  haze.  I  returned  to  the  yacht.  Just  below, 
at  Tollesbury  pier,  preparations  were  in  progress 
for  another  village  regatta;  and  an  ineffable  mel- 
ancholy seemed  to  distil  out  of  the  extreme  beauty 
of  the  estuary,  for  this  was  the  last  regatta,  and 
this  our  last  cruise,  of  the  season. 


THE   END 


307 


Illinium 


A   °oo  099-521"*' 


